Name: Syrian Stuffed Zucchini in Tomato-Apricot Sauce
Yield: Yield: 6 to 8 Servings
Cuisine: Syria
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon dried mint; Juice of ½ to 1 lemon; 1 tablespoon brown sugar; 2 tablespoons pomegranate molasses; 1 cup canned tomato puree; Generous pinch of ground cloves; 6 to 8 zucchini (about3 pounds in all); 1 pound ground beef, lamb, or turkey (dark meat, from the thigh); ⅓ cup orzo; 1½ teaspoons ground allspice; 1 cup dried apricots (use the tart California variety here), diced; 4 tablespoons olive oil; ¼ cup pine nuts; 3 cups finely chopped onion; Salt and freshly ground black pepper; 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon finely chopped garlic; ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preparation info

Yield:
6 to 8
Servings

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Jewish Holiday Cooking

By Jayne Cohen

Published 2008

About

Piles of finger-size zucchini hollowed out by nimble fingers with special tools; whispered gossiping punctuated by bursts of laughter; perfumes of sautéing garlic, buttery pine nuts, and the rosewater scent of her grandmother—all this was evoked for my Syrian-Jewish friend by a single word: mahshi (Arabic for stuffed, as in stuffed vegetables). As a little girl, she couldn’t wait to enter that world of mahshi, but by the time she was old enough, it had vanished.

Yet, while fe