Stuffed squash, courgette, marrow, mahshi, or zucchini is a dish common in Egypt, the Balkans and the Ottoman cuisine, a kind of dolma. It consists of various kinds of squash or zucchini stuffed with rice and sometimes meat and cooked on the stovetop or in the oven. The meat version is served hot, as a main course. The meatless version is considered an "olive-oil dish" and is often eaten at room temperature or warm.
Preparation
The placenta and seeds of larger, shorter, cylindrical immature squashes are pulled off, and the further proceeding is similar as for punjene paprike or sarma.[1] Often, punjene tikvice (stuffed squashes) and punjene paprike (stuffed peppers) are made together, as a mixed dish.[2]
Name
The name in various languages generally means literally "stuffed squash": Croatian: Punjene tikvice; Serbian: Punjene tikvice; Serbian Cyrillic: Пуњене тиквице; Albanian: Kungulleshka të mbushura; Macedonian: Полнети тиквички; Bulgarian: Пълнени тиквички; Greek: Γεμιστά κολοκυθάκια ; Turkish: Kabak dolması; kousa mahshiEgyptian Arabic: محشى كوسا / ALA-LC: kūsā maḥshī.[3], kishu memoulehHebrew: קישוא ממולא.
Kousa mahshi, stuffed zucchini
Variants
An acorn squash stuffed with pilaf and topped with cheese
In the Levant, this dish is flavoured with mint and garlic. In Cyprus, the flowers of the marrow are also stuffed.[4]
The cultivar is called 'Cousa' in Robinson and Decker-Walters (1997)[5] p. 77: "Some summer squash cultivars, e.g. the vegetable marrows (Cucurbita pepo) are consumed when almost mature. In the Middle East, nearly mature fruits of 'Cousa' are stuffed with meat and other ingredients, then baked".
In Canada, stuffed squash is often prepared with tomato sauce or spaghetti sauce as well as with melted cheese on top.[6]
