Dolma

                                                                               Receta en Español

Dolmá are some vegetables leaves stuffed with meat and rice. This dish is original from several countries of middle east: Armenia, Turkey, Egipt, Albania, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Balkan countries, Greece , Iraq and Iran.

For this reason, you can find different ways to do dolmas.

Today I present the most typical dish from Armenia , I found this recipe at this website where you can also find some information about Armenia:

http://www.armenianow.com/features/mama_makes_it_better 

Ingredients (For 30 dolma):

• 500 grams mince.
• 1 chopped onion.
• 1/2 cup round rice.
• 70 grams butter.
• 1 tablespoon tomato sauce.
• 1 pot of preserved grape leaves.
• Black pepper.
• Cayenne.
• 1 dessert spoon basil.
• 1 dessert spoon parsley.
• 1 dessert spoon ground coriander.
• 1 dessert spoon dill.
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice.
• Salt.
• 2 tablespoon pine nuts.

Method:


1-  Sautée onions with a little butter until onion gets light brown.

2- Add rice and cook at low heat for 10 minutes.

3- Add the rest of the ingredients: (meat, spices,lemon juice,butter,tomato sauce and pine nuts) sautée for 2 minutes, the meat should not be overcooked because it will be cooked inside the dolma.

4- Let the meat get cold.

5-  Wash the grape leaves, use an absorbent paper to dry the leaves.
Cut the petiole of the leaf.

6-  Now it is time to stuff the leafs, follow this instructions to do it the right way.

Put the leaf on a flat surface, the same way you see at the picture, put a little quantity of meat in the middle of the leaf.

7- To fold the leaves , take the ends of the middle and fold one on top of the other, we can call it the 'arms' of the leaf:

8- Take the two lower parts of the leaf (we can call them 'the legs'), fold them on top of the 'arms'.

9- Now take the upper part of the leaf, 'the head', fold it over the rest of the dolma.

This is the result:

10 - Now it is time to cook dolmas. Take a big casserole, put some grape leaves on the bottom of the casserole. This is to prevent our dolmas to stick to the bottom.

11- Now place all the dolmas inside the casserole:

12- Pour water just to cover all the dolmas:

13-  Put a dish on top of the dolmas, and something on top of it to prevent dolmas to float up.

14- Cook for half an hour at low heat.

My comments to the recipe

The taste of the meat mixed with all the spices is delicious, the grape leaves provide a new flavour to the meat, it is a nice way to eat meat.

Where to find the ingredients

The grape leaves can be bought at the shops at Antonio Calvo street, close to Madrid's mosque.







Armenia