Stuffed Vegetable Dishes

It was my first visit to Turkey, where it seems as if almost every ingredient is stuffed, which fired my enthusiasm for stuffing vegetables. Stuffed vegetables always provide an element of surprise and ingenuity, and can be a wonderfully dense mingling of flavours. Served cold and dribbled with good olive oil, stuffed vegetables make a perfect first course. Several vegetables like sweet peppers, large onions, tomatoes, aubergines, every type and shape of the squash family and crisp, cup-like leaves of Iceberg lettuce and radicchio, are natural containers for stuffings, but round root vegetables can also be hollowed out and stuffed. Large leaves such as cabbage, spinach, spring greens and vine leaves can be softened and wrapped around stuffings.