Gilda's Stuffed Peppers

Peperoni Ripieni di Gilda
Stuffed peppers were a pretty popular dish in the Zeoli family – everybody liked all kinds of peppers at home. Italians love their peppers – they prepare them using various cooking methods – pickling, boiling, frying, braising, grilling, and baking. They are nutritionally sound, and raw, they have a higher vitamin C content than do oranges!
To make stuffed peppers, Gilda would use green or red bell peppers. In the summer you can find them in abundance. There are more color varieties of peppers today – orange, yellow, and purple – you can use any color pepper for her dish. What set Gilda’s stuffed peppers apart from any others was the use of pepperoni as an ingredient in the stuffing. If you can’t tolerate the spiciness of the pepperoni, you can use soppresata or Genoa salami in diced little pieces instead – they give the meat an explosion of flavor that will make you come back for more. For those of you who cannot eat peppers, use cabbage instead – Gilda’s recipe can be used for making stuffed cabbages as well.
Ingredients:
6 small peppers (see photos for size)
1 c cooked rice (1/3 uncooked)
1 lb ground meat (a mixture of beef, pork, and veal)
A handful of fresh parsley, chopped or 2 T of dried parsley
2 t dried oregano or the leaves from 3 sprigs, chopped
½ cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano
½ c bread crumbs made from stale Italian bread
2 eggs, slightly beaten
Fresh basil, chopped, or a couple of teaspoons of dried
Salt and [pepper] to taste
1 c of diced Italian pepperoni or Genoa salami or soppresata (get the real thing from the Italian deli)
Extra-virgin olive oil for lubricating peppers
1½ quarts of your favorite pasta sauce (Gilda’s gravy recipe would be great here!)
Preparation:
Cook rice and preheat oven to 375°F.
Wash peppers, cut off tops, and remove stem and seeds. If you’re using larger peppers, you can cut them in half and make double the amount of stuffed peppers by using both halves (just be sure to make more stuffing).
Bring pot of water to a boil and drop peppers in, parboiling them for a few minutes. Remove from water, pat dry, and set aside to cool.
While peppers are parboiling, prepare stuffing by mixing together rice, meat, parsley, Parmigiano Reggiano, oregano, basil, eggs, bread crumbs, salt, pepperoni (or one of the other substitutes), and [pepper] in a medium bowl.
Put some of your favorite tomato sauce in a small baking dish so the bottom is lightly covered.
Using your hands, rub olive oil all around the cooled parboiled peppers. Then sprinkle each pepper shell with salt, and after that stuff them with mixture and set in baking dish.
Cover peppers with rest of sauce and cover dish with foil.
Bake in oven for about 45 minutes to an hour or until the meat inside is cooked.
If you’ve made enough sauce, you can serve pasta with the it and then serve the peppers as a second piatto, or simply serve the peppers by themselves with crusty Italian bread.