Dolmades

The History
Dolmades, or "Dolmas" come from the cusines of the former Ottoman Empire, such as Turkey, Cyprus, and the Balkans. In the States, we're used to getting dolmades from our local Greek or Turkish restaurant that contain rice rolled inside grape leaves, but dolmades are actually a wider family of foods – pretty much any combination of rice, minced meat, vegetables and seasonings rolled in another vegetable (or grape leaf) are considered dolmades. There appears to be an infinite variety of dolmades, but I chose to focus on the type typically sold around here.



The Process
Like many of my previous foods, dolmades seemed mysterious and fancy; the sort of thing (like pierogi or potstickers) that should be purchased from an ethnic restaurant. I found, though, that they are easy to make, and even more delicious when they're homemade. I googled and immediately found a few simple recipes, all involving grape leaves with either a stuffing of rice or minced meat. Since we're mostly vegetarians, I went with the rice stuffing. It took me an easy half an hour to make the stuffing, another 10-15 minutes of rolling, and then about 20 minutes of steaming/frying/boiling (I don't really know what the technique was) to cook them. The hardest part was locating the grape leaves. Luckily, we have a delicious middle eastern market (The One Stop Mart and Deli) a few blocks away. It sells usual corner mart type goods (toilet paper, candy bars, chips, sodas) but also has a small shelf with grape leaves, kalamata olives, couscous and spices. (And the deli sells fantastic falafel pita sandwiches, too!) I bought a large jar of grape leaves, and headed home.



The Recipe

Super easy. Saute a diced onion in a pan with olive oil. As it's cooking, add a handful of pine nuts, a generous sprinkle of raisins or currants, some chopped parsley and mint, a squirt of lemon juice, salt, pepper, and finally, about a cup to a cup and a half of uncooked rice. I prefer to use brown rice or wild rice (I think white rice would be too starchy and don't recommend it, plus it's nutritionally kind of pointless). Add water to the frying pan until the rice is just covered, then cook on low-medium heat until the rice is partially cooked. At this point the stuffing should have absorbed most of the water.


Rinse the grape leaves in cold water for a few minutes. (The leaves come in a jar filled with brine.) Lay them out flat on a counter, shiny side down, and fill in any holes with smaller leaves. Take about a tablespoon of the stuffing, and place in the center of the leaves. First, fold the bottom (stem side) part of the leaf up, then tuck in the sides, and finally roll up into a cigar shape, so that no rice can get out. It may take a few tries. Don't roll the leaves too tightly- you're going to cook them again and the rice will expand a bit. It sort of seems like they might fall apart or disintegrate, but as long as the leaves are intact, you'll be fine.

Once you've rolled up all your stuffing, arrange the dolmades in the frying pan until they're all snuggled in with each other, then add the juice of a lemon, a generous splash of olive oil, and add water until the dolmades are almost covered. Then, place a plate on top of the dolmades, in the frying pan to hold the dolmades in place. (It helps.) Boil them in the pan on medium-low heat for about twenty minutes, or until most of the water has been absorbed.

This type of dolmades are typically served cold, but were also great eaten hot when I was impatient and scarfed a few down to "test" them.

Sometimes they're served with a yogurt sauce- plain yogurt, diced cucumber, salt, lime, cumin... but I was lazy. I'm sure it would have been yummy but they had plenty of flavor without the sauce.


The Results

Totally easy, totally delicious and really healthy. I think they'd make a great lunch- you could make a few dozen over the weekend, then take 5 or 6 to work as part of a lunch. They'd also make an easy appetizer for a party! There's no hard and fast rule for the stuffing, so it's a great experimental recipe. I think you'd have to work pretty hard to mess them up! Enjoy!