«All
Featured Cookings
Mediterranean Cuisine: Dolma
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dolma
is a family of stuffed vegetable dishes in the cuisines of the
former Ottoman Empire and surrounding regions, including Turkey,
Egypt, Albania, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Jordan, Syria,
Lebanon, Palestine, the Balkans, Greece, Iraq, Iran and Central
and South Asia. Perhaps the best-known is the grape-leaf dolma,
which is more precisely called yaprak dolma or sarma. Common
vegetables to stuff include zucchini, eggplant, tomato and pepper.
The stuffing may or may not include meat. Meat dolma are generally
served warm, often with sauce; meatless ones are generally served
cold, though meatless Dolma are eaten both ways in Iran. Both
are often eaten with yoghurt.
Filling
The filling generally consists of rice, minced meat or grain.
In either case, the filling includes onion, parsley, herbs and
spices. Meatless fillings are cooked with olive oil and include
dried grapes, nuts or pulses.
Names and etymology
Dolma is a verbal noun of the Turkish verb dolmak "to be
stuffed", and means simply "stuffed thing".
Dolma, strictly speaking, is a stuffed
vegetable, that is, a vegetable that is hollowed out and filled
with stuffing. This applies to courgette, tomato, pepper, eggplant
and the like; stuffed mackerel, squid and mussel are also called
"dolma". Dishes involving wrapping leaves such as
vine leaves or cabbage leaves around a filling are called 'sarma'
though in many languages, the distinction is usually not made.
Sarma is derived from the Turkish verb sarmak which means to
wrap. Other variants derive from the Turkish word for 'leaf',
yaprak.
Dolma cooked with olive oil without minced
meat is sometimes called "yalanc¦" which literally
means "liar", "false" or "fake"
in Turkish. It is "fake" because it does not contain
meat.
In some countries, the usual name for the
dish is a phonetic variant of 'dolma' or 'yaprak' (meaning leaf
in Turkish); in others, it is a translation, sometimes the two
have distinct meanings: Albanian: japrak; Arabic: mahshi or
dolma, mahshi warak einab (grape leaf); Aramaic: t'urrpeh or
yapraghe; Armenian: tolma/dolma; Azerbaijani: dolma, Bosnian:
dolma; Bulgarian: lozova sur'ma (grape-leaf sarma); Georgian:
tolma; Greek: dol'mas (grape-leaf), jemis'ta for vegetables;
Ladino: yaprakes finos (grape-leaf); Montenegrin: japraci; Persian:
dolmeh; Romanian: sarma (grape or cabbage leaf); Serbian: sarma.
Dolma Recipe
INGREDIENTS
1 lb Ground lamb
2 large Onions, finely chopped
1/2 cup Rice, cooked
5 tbsp Olive oil
1 tsp Sugar
2 tsp Salt (now I use 1 1/2 t.)
1/2 tsp Black pepper
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1 tsp Allspice
2 tbsp Currants
2 tbsp Pinenuts
1 tbsp Mint leaves, finely chopped
1 tbsp Parsley, finely chopped
1 tsp Dried dill (or to taste fresh)
1 tbsp Tomato sauce
Grape leaves (28 oz. jar or 2 smaller jars)
PREPARATION
1. Saute onions in olive oil. Cook rice. Mix all stuffing ingredients
(the lamb is not cooked first), kneading for 5 minutes. Taste.
You should taste mint, dill and onion before lamb.
2. Stuff grape leaves. Hold with glossy
side down. Roll up and place seam side down, in a heavy pot,
ends touching to keep them in place. Add 1 cup water mixed with
2 T. tomato juice (I just use more of the tomato sauce). Put
a plate upside down on top of the dolmas. Cover and cook over
medium heat for 40 minutes. Serve warm or cold with lemon or
yogurt.
3. This is a fabulous recipe which has
evolved over many years. The kneading can be done in a food
processor which makes them much faster and easier. This makes
about 75.
Buy book:
Cooking at the Kasbah
By Kitty Morse and Laurie Smith
Chronicle Books, 1998
$15.61 Paperback
ISBN-10: 081181503X
