This recipe is my Mom’s recipe; she invented it when we lived in Russian Far East. She had that awesome spiral potato cutter, so she was cutting potato and using it in two dishes, spirally cut potatoes from  the middle of potato were fried (Yummm) and the rest of the potato, (it looked like an empty potato when it was cut) was stuffed with minced meat.

       I was looking for this spiral cutter for quite some time, at last I found it on Ebay, so I hope to get it by mail soon:-)

       When preparing this dish, I was cutting potatoes without it. In order to get the potato shells, where you can put meat you have to cut out the potato inside, thus it will look like an empty shell. It’s a hard work, I shall say. So if you have this spiral potato cutter or if you will decide to be brave and cook this dish without it, this recipe is for you:

Ingredients:

12 medium potatoes

½ lb. minced beef (or pork)

1 medium carrot

1 egg

1 medium onion

1 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of black pepper

2 tablespoons of sour cream

Serves: 3 people

Step 1: Peel the potatoes

Step 2: Cut out the potato from inside, so that it would look like an empty shell. (It’s better to have spiral potato cutter) see the picture.

Step 3: Prepare your minced meat. Peel, wash and chop the onion, peel, shred and add carrots, add the egg, onion ( ½ of the onion you chopped) and season well.

Step 4:  Stuff the potato.

Step 5: Put the potato in a saucepan, add some water (1/3 of the saucepan, so that your potato wouldn’t drown). Simmer for 20 minutes.

Step 5: Braise your onion with sour-cream and add to the saucepan with potato.

Step 6: Simmer everything for 10 more minutes.

***Note from Helen*** Notice I don’t season the potato before stuffing it, because I like food with less salt. If you like your food to be very well salted, add salt when simmering your potato and/or season the raw potato before stuffing it.***

Serve the dish warm. I like to serve it with steamed broccoli and covered with cheese.

Enjoy!

It’s a very nice, comfort dish. It takes some effort to cook it, but if you have the potato cutter - life is easier. Plus you can stuff this potato with cottage cheese and herbs it should be nice. tell me what you think?

TGIF  and today is the first week of  my TGIF Special!

Every week I’ll be featuring one post of my friends’ signature recipes , so stay tuned  maybe next week it will be your turn !

I Love this recipe, it’s simple, it’s fast to cook and tastes EVEN BETTER than at the local restaurant!

Meet the owner of the blog Itsy Bitsy Foodies Kelsey  Hilts:

Kelsey Hilts has always been interested in cooking, traveling, exploring new places, learning languages and learning about other cultures. In 2005 she graduated from Pomona College with a degree in Romance Literatures and Languages (French and Spanish). During college, she studied in France and Spain where she had the opportunity to travel throughout Europe and taste regional cuisines.

Meet Kelsey’s Teriyaki Chicken in My interpretation:

The recipe could be found here.

The only two things are that I added are: the onion to the chicken just 5 minutes before the turning the gas off and I also added steamed broccoli, which is just a must for me, when dining with teriyaki chicken:-)

And another thing, I was using ginger once and the ginger powder another time: I liked the recipe more with ginger powder, but that’s up to each and everyone’s taste!

Enjoy!

And thank you Kelsey for an AMAZING recipe!