In the usual sense, Russians dolma is a filling of rice and minced meat, wrapped in grape leaves. This is indeed the most common version of the dish both in our country and in the world. Although the peoples of Transcaucasia, Asia, the Balkan Peninsula, and other national cuisines cook it with a shell of their various products - cabbage leaves, horse sorrel, as well as a variety of vegetables. The filling always contains rice or other cereals, such as chickpeas or bulgur, very often mixed with meat.

We will tell you how to prepare food in grape leaves, as well as how to cook dolma according to unusual national recipes.

Classical dolma in grape leaves

The traditional dolma recipe is not complicated. If you compare, for example, with the preparation of cabbage rolls, then they will require much more time to process the leaves.

More materials:dolma in grape leaves

Important! You can use fresh leaves or salted, they are sold in the markets. You can also find ready-made pickled dolma leaves for sale. The most delicious dish is obtained from fresh young leaves. But if they are hard, they can be preliminarily boiled with boiling water, soak excessively salty preparations in water and boil for several minutes. It is important to observe the proportions of salt in minced meat and leaves.

You will need the following products:

  • a kilogram of lamb or beef (preferably a thick edge or the part that can go for stuffing);
  • half a glass of rice;
  • onions - 2 pcs.;
  • two tablespoons of ghee, goose fat or vegetable oil;
  • 1 teaspoon of salt with a small slide;
  • a bunch of parsley, cilantro (in the total mass);
  • grape leaves;
  • spices and seasonings to taste.

Cooking:

  1. Pour fresh leaves with water, let stand and rinse. Let water drain, cut off, remove petioles. If the leaves are harsh, pour boiling water over them or even boil a little.Rinse if the leaves are salty or pickled.
  2. Rinse the rice in water, boil for 5-10 minutes. Drain and recline in a colander. Important! If you use fresh leaves, then rice can not be boiled - the leaves are cooked for a long time, during which time the croup will have time to boil to the desired state.
  3. In vegetable oil or fat, slightly passer onion chopped finely, wait until it becomes transparent, but not roasted.
  4. Cool the onion and rice.
  5. Grind the meat in a meat grinder or chop finely with a knife.
  6. Add minced salt, greens, rice, spices. Knead it to a state of dense viscosity.
  7. At the bottom of a thick-walled pan (cauldron or clay pot) lay out substandard leaves (torn or uneven), on them - rolled up stuffed envelopes. Stack dolma tightly, in rows, between the layers you can lay a few dried fruits (dried apricots or prunes, for an amateur).
  8. Put leaves on top of the last row and fill the layers with boiling water, covering them completely. Put a clean plate on top to prevent dolma from floating up. Bring to a boil over high heat and, reducing the heat, cook under the lid for another 40 minutes, until the leaves are ready.

They eat food by pouring envelopes with a sauce from a cauldron, and seasoning with a mixture of sour cream, garlic and finely chopped hot pepper.

Tip: The leaves can be relatively even and also very carved, depending on the grape variety. To prevent the filling from falling out, make it small, slightly larger than the thumb. After putting the stuffing in place, first wrap one near edge on the stuffing, and then overlap the second corner with it, then wrap the rest of the sheet on the resulting triangle and put the seam down.

Cooking according to the Armenian recipe

Dolma in Armenian is an almost classic version of dolma, however, it is often stewed with some deviations from the usual version:

  • Armenian dogma is distinguished by the addition of garlic to the minced meat. A little, a couple of cloves will enliven the taste of your dish;
  • still need to add more spices and herbs. As an option, you can offer basil, turmeric, sage, curry - to your taste and discretion. Do not spoil dolma with spices;
  • in the process of stewing rice and meat will absorb a lot of liquid and become juicy. But some add a little bit of natural yogurt or yogurt to the mincemeat for even more juiciness.

The principle of making dolma in Armenian is the same, but here is what the recipe looks like:

  • a pound of beef;
  • fifty leaves;
  • 300 g of dry rice and onion turnips;
  • cilantro, marjoram, basil - all by eye, about 50 g each (but marjoram is half as much);
  • to taste salt, hot pepper and black pepper, as well as a little chili pepper.

With nuts

It is interesting: bulgur recipe

This is a vegetarian version of dolma. Often it is called sarma; it was distributed mainly in western Armenia. There, the grape leaves are not wrapped with minced meat, but lentils, mushrooms; good and high-calorie meat is obtained from lean rice or other cereal minced meat with the addition of nuts.

Azerbaijani

More recently, at the end of 2017, a meeting of the intergovernmental committee took place at UNESCO, where, according to the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of this organization, it was decided to include the tradition of preparing dolma and its distribution from the state of Azerbaijan. For us, this means only one thing: it’s just necessary to talk about how dolma is prepared in Azerbaijani, because it is widespread in a very wide range of countries, but Azerbaijanis prepare it in their own way and masterfully.

Differences of the Azerbaijani dolma:

  • she is deliciously fat;
  • not grape leaves (although they too) begin, but different vegetables;
  • fresh yogurt gives taste notes;
  • all vegetables are stewed simultaneously in one pan.

It is often called poetically “Three Sisters,” “Three Brothers,” or something similar, since three vegetables are stuffed — tomatoes, bell peppers, and eggplant.

For each serving, it is usually assumed for each of the vegetables, respectively, for three people it is taken:

  • 6 medium sized tomatoes;
  • as many medium eggplants;
  • 6 medium peppers;
  • a pound of lamb and the same amount of beef or a kilogram of any one kind of meat;
  • a pound of onions;
  • 200 ml of vegetable oil;
  • salt, pepper, basil to taste.

Procedure:

  1. Make stuffing by scrolling meat and onions in a meat grinder.
  2. After heating the pan, sauté the minced meat in a half oil until light brown. At the end of frying, pepper and salt.
  3. While the meat is fried, you need to have time to prepare all the vegetables. Soak in eggplant for twenty minutes in cold salt water (after cutting off the ends and notching along to make a kind of little book). Fry eggplant on all sides in oil and let cool. For peppers and a tomato, cut a lid on top, select seeds and pulp with a spoon, and salt the vegetables from the inside. Discard the seeds of pepper and septum, chop the tomato cores and add to the minced meat, continuing to fry for a few more minutes. Add basil.
  4. After cooling the minced meat, stuff the vegetables. Cover the peppers and tomatoes with lids.
  5. Put everything in rows in a saucepan, add the rest of the oil and, having covered with a lid, simmer over low heat. Water is not needed, vegetables will give their delicious aromatic juice. Dolma is served in Azerbaijan poured juice. It’s also good to sprinkle it with dried mint.

With lamb and mint

Peppermint generally goes very well with grape leaves and meat. Especially it perfectly sets off the specific aroma of lamb. The grass is used in the preparation of the classic dolma with lamb minced meat.

The layout of the products in this case is as follows:

  • 200 g of fresh leaves;
  • a pound of minced meat;
  • onion head;
  • a little fresh or dry mint;
  • a spoonful of vegetable oil;
  • 100 g of rice;
  • a little thyme and a lot of chopped parsley;
  • lemon juice and 700 g of water or vegetable broth.

Everything else is done, as in the usual preparation of dolma.

With yogurt sauce

This sauce will add a spicy touch, and more often it is used in the preparation of lamb dolma.

The essence of the recipe is that a sauce of fermented milk Caucasian yogurt product (a local analogue of our yogurt) is added to the finished dolma. Finely chopped garlic, parsley and cilantro should be placed in yogurt. While dolma is being prepared, the sauce is infused in the refrigerator - the longer, the more aromatic it will be. The dish is served with a sauceboat, in which sauce is poured with yogurt.

How to cook in a slow cooker

Dolma in a slow cooker is prepared like this:

  1. Cook the rice in water in the “Rice” mode.
  2. Add chopped onion to the minced meat.
  3. Combine with boiled rice and roll dolma rolls.
  4. Put them in a bowl, pour a couple of centimeters above the products with water.
  5. Cover the top with a plastic bowl so that the rolls do not pop up.
  6. Cook for half an hour in a quenching mode.

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