"Ripe tomatoes and capsicum stuffed gently with a herby-oniony-tomatoey rice filling that is dotted with salty, morish, gooey cheese-bombs... and then capped with crusty breadcrumbs."
Yemista
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Prep time: 30mins
Cook time: 2hrs
Serves or Makes: 16
Recipe Card
ingredients
- 12 ea large ripe tomatoes
- 4 ea medium red capsicum
- 2 ea finely chopped large brown onion
- 1 cup thick tomato passata
- 1 bunch finely chopped mint
- 1/2 bunch finely chopped continental parsley
- 1/2 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- 2 1/2 teaspoons table salt
- 2 1/2 teaspoons cracked black pepper
- 1 1/2 cups long grain rice
- 350 gram kefalograviera cubed
- 4 ea potatoes
- 3 cups water
- breadcrumbs
- extra EVOO for drizzling
Method
Preparing the yemista
Step 1
Carefully cut across the base of the tomatoes, but not all the way across, to form ‘hinged-lids’ on all the tomatoes
Step 2
Using a melon baller scoop out most, but not all, of the flesh of the tomatoes and place this in a food processor
Step 3
Add the passata to the food processor and blitz with the tomato flesh
Step 4
Reserve 1 – 1 ½ cups of the puréed tomato/passata and add the remaining puréed tomato/passata to a large mixing bowl
Step 5
Add the finely chopped onions, parsley, mint, EVOO, salt, pepper, rice and kefalograviera to the mixing bowl and mix well
Step 6
Cut out the stalk, along with a little surrounding flesh, from the top of the capsicums and remove the seeds and veins from the capsicums too. Retain the capsicum lids
Step 7
Spoon the tomato-herb-rice mixture into the hollowed-out tomatoes and capsicums, making sure 2-3 pieces of cheese go into each tomato and 4-6 pieces into each capsicum. Place these in an extra-large baking dish
Step 8
Peel and slice the potatoes into thick chips and lay these in the baking dish in one corner
Step 9
Add 3 cups of water to the reserved puréed tomato/passata and mix well
Step 10
Pour the tomato-water mixture over the potatoes and yemista
Step 11
Drizzle the yemista and the potatoes generously with EVOO
Step 12
Spoon 1 teaspoon of breadcrumbs on top of each of the yemista
Baking the yemista
Step 1
Place a large piece of vented foil over the baking dish
Step 2
Bake at 200°C fan-forced for approximately 2 hours. One hour covered and approximately 1 hour uncovered; until the rice and potatoes are cooked through, and the breadcrumbs and capsicum brown a little.
Serving the yemista
Step 1
Enjoy the yemista with crusty bread. Kali Orexi!
Key Points
Step 1
Eleni prefers to use truss tomatoes for her yemista, for their flavour and their shape. When buying truss tomatoes, choose bright red ones for their better flavour and texture (Do not buy the orangey-red ones. They are floury and flavourless)
Step 2
The tomatoes should be ripe, but firm, so they can retain their shape during baking
Step 3
When removing the pulp from the tomatoes, leave enough flesh in the tomatoes, so the tomatoes retain their shape and don’t turn into collapsing sacks of skin
Step 4
If you accidentally create a small hole at the ‘base’ of the tomato when you’re scooping out the flesh, fear not, you can still stuff the tomato and the filling will not come out during baking or serving. In fact, the cooked filling will plug the hole
Step 5
Use the soft stalks from the parsley and mint, along with the leaves. Discard the coarse stalks
Step 6
If you use a food processor to chop the onions and herbs, be sure not to over-process them. You want to have some texture for both, and not end up with purée and pesto!
Step 7
Eleni uses ½ cup EVOO in the filling. You can even use ¾ cup of EVOO for extra depth of flavour in your yemista
Step 8
The filling needs to be a little runny. You can add some of your reserved tomato/passata mixture to make it runnier
Step 9
Do not over-fill your yemista! The filling needs to feel loose, not packed in the yemista, otherwise the tomatoes will split during baking, as the rice cooks and expands
Step 10
Use an extra large pan, which can accommodate 12 tomatoes, 4 capsicums and 4-5 potatoes
Step 11
These yemista are even more delicious the day after they are made, so any leftovers will certainly be savoured!