Greek cuisine
Gemista
Γεμιστά
Tomatoes and peppers stuffed with herbed rice and baked with potatoes in olive oil.
- Prep
- 45 min
- Cook
- 80 min
- Total
- 125 min
- Difficulty
- Easy
Ingredients
- Large tomatoes8
- Bell peppers4
- Short-grain rice300 g
- Onions3
- Potatoes600 g
- Parsley50 g
- Mint20 g
- Dill30 g
- Olive oil200 ml
- Sugar1 tsp
- Salt and pepperto taste
Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.
Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.
Method
- 1
Cut lids off the tomatoes and scoop out the flesh with a spoon without piercing the walls.
15 min
- 2
Blitz the flesh and add the sugar; it takes the edge off the tomato acidity.
6 min
- 3
Soften the onion in olive oil for ten minutes, until sweet.
12 min
- 4
Mix the raw rice with the onion, herbs, half the tomato purée, salt and pepper.
8 min
- 5
Fill the vegetables two-thirds full, cap them with their lids and set them in a dish.
15 min
- 6
Tuck potato wedges between them, pour over the remaining purée and douse it all with oil.
10 min
- 7
Bake covered with foil at 180 °C for an hour, then uncover and give it twenty minutes more.
85 min
About the dish
The tomato flesh is not thrown away: it is blitzed and stirred into the rice. It supplies the moisture the rice finishes cooking in.
The rice goes in raw and the vegetables are filled two-thirds full. It doubles in volume, and a fully packed tomato simply bursts in the oven.
The oil goes in generously — up to half a cup for the tray. This is a ladero, a dish "in oil", and in Greek cooking being sparing here counts as spoiling the recipe.
Worth knowing
- — Gemista is served warm or at room temperature, not hot. In Greece that is a rule, and it is rarely eaten straight from the oven.
- — Add water to the dish only if the purée does not cover the base. A dry bottom scorches; a flooded one boils instead of baking.
- — It is better on the second day. It needs time for the oil to work through the filling, and Greeks often bake it the evening before.
Nutrition
Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.
- Calories
- 480 kcal
- Protein
- 8 g
- Fat
- 24 g
- Carbs
- 60 g
More from Greece
- Moussaka — Aubergine, a meat sauce with cinnamon and a thick layer of béchamel, baked until it sets firm enough to cut.
- Horiatiki salad — The village salad, with no leaves in it: tomato, cucumber, onion, olives and a whole slab of feta on top.
- Souvlaki — Pork on skewers in lemon, oregano and olive oil, cooked fast over a fierce heat.