Stuffed potatoes with beef, sounds good, right?! My mom used to make this more than 2 decades ago, at first I thought it was her own invention. How would one think to take the insides of the potatoes and stuff them?! However, in Egypt, we love stuffing stuff, we stuff grape leaves, squash, eggplant, tomatoes, cabbage leaves, bell peppers, lamb intestines, hence it is a natural flow of events to eventually stuff potatoes. So, I get to find out that this dish is one of the traditional Egyptian dishes. Seriously, it is YUMMY!! It is fried potatoes with ground beef and tomato sauce. So, how could this go wrong?!

Ingredients

1 lb ground beef
2 tbsp vegetable oil ( for ground beef prep)
1 diced onion ( for ground beef prep)
1 tsp paprika ( for ground beef prep)
1 tsp all spices ( for ground beef prep)
2 tbsp tomato paste ( for ground beef prep)

2 lb small to medium sized potatoes  ( for potatoes prep)
Vegetable oil for frying ( for potatoes prep)
1 tsp paprika ( for potatoes prep)
1 sliced tomato
Parmsean cheese (optional)

1 tsp minced garlic (for tomato sauce prep)
1 small thinly diced onion (for tomato sauce prep)
3 tomatoes ( for tomato sauce prep)
2 tbsp tomato paste ( for tomato sauce prep)
1 cup water ( for tomato sauce prep)
2 tbsp vegetable oil ( for tomato sauce prep)

salt and pepper

Preparing ground beef stuffing

• Heat 2 tbsp of vegetable oil in a pan on medium/high heat.
• Stir in the diced onion until yellow.
• Add the ground beef to the onions  and lower the heat.

• Keep stirring and when juices are bit absorbed, add salt, pepper and all spices.
• Add 2 tbsp of the tomato paste to the beef and stir well.
• Leave it to simmer on low heat for 10 minutes.

Preparing the tomato sauce

• Heat 2 tbsp of vegetable oil in a pan on medium/high heat
• Dissolve 2 tbsp of tomato paste in 1 cup of water and set aside.
• Blend 3 tomatoes in the blender and set aside.
• Stir in the diced onion until yellow.

• Add the minced garlic and stir for a few seconds.
• Add the tomato paste mix and blended tomatoes to the heat.

• Simmer for 20 minutes.
• Adjust the salt and pepper.

Preparing potatoes

• Peel the potatoes and remove the insides using a corer or a spoon but make sure that you remove like 2 inches of the core so it will take inside a lot of beef 🙂

• Wash the potatoes.
• Soak it in salty water for 10 minutes.
• Pat dry the potatoes
• Warm the vegetable oil in a deep pan until hot (350 degrees F.)
• Fry potatoes in oil until light golden color.
• Take the potatoes out of the oil and pat dry them with paper towels.
• Place the potatoes with opening facing upwards in a baking dish.
• Sprinkle, salt, pepper and paprika n the potatoes.

• Stuff each potato with about 1 tablespoon of the ground beef stuffing.

• Pour tomato sauce over stuffed potatoes.

• Sprinkle some parmesan on the top of the potatoes.
• Also you can add slices of tomatoes on the top of the baking dish.

• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
• Place dish in oven and bake for about 45 minutes.
• Serve with calrose rice.