Lebanese stuffed zucchini cooked in a tomato sauce
Wash the zucchini well. Remove the tops and set aside if you are going to close the zucchini with them
Using a corer, scrape out the insides of the zucchini leaving around a half centimetre margin
Take small handful of the stuffing and gently fill the zucchini leaving around an inch near the top for the cooked rice to expand
Once you have finished stuffing all the zucchini, add the carton of passata, salt, regular olive oil, juice of 1 lemon and top up with water.
Cover with a plate that fits inside the pot and bring to the boil. Then reduce the heat to a low simmer
After half an hour of cooking, remove the plate and add the garlic, dried mint and juice of another lemon
Simmer for another half an hour and taste the sauce to see if it needs any seasoning, salt or lemon adjustment
Serve in a shallow bowl with some of the tomato sauce
If you prefer to pre-cook the meat for the stuffing, lightly sauté the onion until translucent then add the meat and cook for around 10 minutes until most of the juices run dry. Then add the rest of the raw ingredients and stuff the zucchini accordingly.
If you are in tomato season, you can also make the tomato sauce out of fresh tomatoes, just simply blitz them in a food processor.