Lamb dolma: cooking secrets and a little history

Grape leaves

Preparation of dolma involves the use of grape leaves. Traditionally they are taken fresh. The leaves must be from light table grape varieties (not wine grapes), and must be young - light and tender. Before use, they are immersed in boiling water or soaked in salt water for half an hour.

Leaves from your own grapes can be pickled to prepare dolma at any time of the year.

If you don’t have your own grapes, you can buy prepared leaves - they are most often wet-salted. Stacks of this product lie where they sell a variety of pickled and fermented products.

But you can find raw materials that are dry salted. The leaves are placed in glass jars, having previously been rolled into balls. Before use, they are soaked in water.

Depending on the shelf life of the product, the degree of salinity, size and hardness of the leaves, before use they are soaked, simply washed or blanched with boiling water. The most important thing is not to cook.

Let's move from words to action...

Today we will prepare one of the most popular versions of this dish - lamb dolma.

Do you know that

Lamb differs from most other types of meat in having a low cholesterol content and a large amount of iron. Therefore, nutritionists recommend including dishes made from lean parts of lamb, steamed (dolma refers to this type of dish) in the diet of people who care about the health of their cardiovascular system.

Ingredients:

Minced lamb – 1 kg;
Round grain rice, boiled until half cooked – 1 cup;
Two medium onions;
Canned or fresh grape leaves – 500 g;
Salt, dried mint leaves and pepper - to taste.

Meat selection.

To prepare minced meat, you need to buy lamb meat no older than three years of age. If the meat is dark in color, it means the lamb was older and its meat is not suitable for us. For dolma, I buy a hip or shoulder cut, or, more simply, a hind or front leg of lamb. It is very important not to forget to buy lamb fat (about 250 grams for the back leg of a lamb). Don’t even try to cook without it - the minced meat will be dry and the dolma will turn out tasteless.

Selection of grape leaves.

Of course, fresh grape leaves are a sign of premium-level dolma. Unfortunately, it is not accessible to everyone. Therefore, we buy pickled, salted grape leaves at the market. When choosing, pay attention to the size, since it will be difficult to wrap the filling in small leaves.

Step-by-step photo recipe

Place the leaves in boiling water for about five minutes to soften.
Then we rinse them with water, which removes excess salt.
Mix minced meat, undercooked rice, mint, finely chopped onion and spices in a bowl. Mint, mixed with lamb fat, gives dolma a unique light sweetish taste and at the same time smoothes out the specific smell of lamb, so do not be afraid to overdo it with this seasoning. I put two handfuls of dry leaves per kilogram of minced meat.
We place the leaf with the veins up and place a ball of filling on it as shown in the photo.
Today I will make dolma in the form of envelopes, but you can wrap it in a tube closed at the ends, this is a matter of aesthetics and individual preference. Do not give in to temptation and do not make dolma larger than “one bite”. Of course, this way you can save time on wrapping. But the main feature of this dish is that all the nutritious and tasty juice remains inside the envelope and should not leak out.
When forming envelopes, be sure to press on the dolma so that the sheet tightly hugs the filling on all sides.
This is how things turned out.
Then everything is simple. Place the dolma in layers in a pan and carefully pour boiling water over the edges of the vessel. I put no more than three layers. The water should just barely cover the envelopes. Cover with a lid and cook over very low heat for about 40–50 minutes.
While the dolma is cooking, we make a simple but essential sauce for this dish from matsoni and crushed garlic. Matsoni can be replaced with any fermented milk product without additives. The sauce should be served chilled.
And finally, the culmination - “they came together like ice and fire” - hot aromatic dolma and cold garlic sauce, complementing each other and revealing their best qualities. Bon appetit!

PS Under no circumstances throw away the seeds that you cut out of the pulp. You can and should use them to cook healthy, nutritious lamb broth, on the basis of which you can then prepare a delicious kharcho soup! But that's a completely different story...

Meat

Traditionally, to prepare dolma, they take lamb - they use a shoulder blade, but if you want to make the dish fattier, you can add kidney fat and fat tail to the minced meat. The minimum ratio of meat and fat is 80% to 20%. You will also need ribs or several lamb bones - they are placed around the dolma and stewed in one pan.

When preparing dolma at home, it is tempting to use a meat grinder, but you should not do this. Minced meat is exclusively chopped by hand using a knife or kitchen hatchet.

Since not everyone likes lamb, you can use pure ground beef or poultry, or a mixture of pork and beef. To add fat to the minced meat, you can add lard or chopped onion fried in oil.

How to cook “Lamb Dolma”

1. Before preparing lamb dolma, prepare the grape leaves. First, pour boiling water over them and let them steam for 5 minutes.

2. Finely chop the onion. Cook the rice, turn it off, without cooking it a little. Add rice and onions to the minced meat, add mint, season with seasonings, and salt.

3. Start preparing the dish. Turn the leaf over with the veins facing up. Place some minced meat. The classic dish has just enough minced meat for one bite.

4. You can wrap the leaves in any convenient way: an envelope, a tube, a triangle. When forming dolma, make sure that the sheet is pressed tightly against the meat.

5. Place food in a saucepan. Carefully pour boiling water over the wall; the water should slightly cover the envelopes. Cook the dish for 45 minutes with the lid closed. That's it, the dolma is ready. Bon appetit.

Sauce

When the dolma is ready, it can be served immediately. In addition to the dish, they serve matsoni or matsun sauce - a fermented milk product with a consistency similar to curd cream, with garlic. Instead of matsoni, you can serve sour cream, yogurt, and even sour homemade milk. Or you can thicken them to the state of matsun by hanging them in a linen bag for a couple of hours and letting the excess whey drain off.

You can make a sauce from kefir, garlic and chopped herbs.

You can serve mint sauce made from low-fat sour cream, pine nuts and dried mint. The mixture should sit in the refrigerator for about an hour.

Dolma: recipe, ingredients

Dolma is a variation of cabbage rolls. Unlike the traditional recipe, according to which the minced meat is wrapped in cabbage leaves, grape leaves are used in dolma. They are smaller in size so the portions are small and neat.

Dolma is not difficult to prepare, but you need to know the specifics and recipe to make a successful and appetizing dish.

If you want to prepare such a dish for a family of 4 people, then use the presented set of products:

Making dolma at home

Now that we know everything about the necessary ingredients, let's start preparing dolma. We will need:

• meat, 1 kg; • rice, 100-150 g; • greens (cilantro), dill, 1 bunch each; • basil and mint, several sprigs; • onion, 2 medium-sized heads; • salt, ground pepper, to taste; • dry mint – you can take a teaspoon if you don’t have fresh mint; • grape leaves.

Chop meat, onions, herbs, mix them with rice, salt and pepper. Mix the minced meat with your hands. We prepare the leaves depending on which ones were taken for the dish.

Description of preparation:

Dolma is a bestseller of Caucasian, Central Asian, Balkan and even North African cuisine.
Grape leaves, rice, finely chopped lamb are the basis of this tasty and healthy dish. Dolma can be served both at the festive table and cooked daily. In fact, it resembles ordinary cabbage rolls; the taste is a fantastically impressive dish. Prepare it at home and you will receive a lot of admiration and praise from your household. Purpose: For lunch / For dinner / For a holiday table Main ingredient: Meat / Lamb / Cereals / Rice / Grape leaves Dish: Hot dishes / Dolma Geography of cuisine: Eastern

How to cook dolma correctly?

In the case of boiling dolma, an important role is played not only by how long the processing will last, but also by how to organize it. Here are basic recommendations for processes depending on the impact option.

In a saucepan. We take a container with a thick bottom, lay out a layer of grape leaves, and place dolma on them in one layer. Fill it all with water so that the water covers the entire structure by 1 cm. Next, lay out another layer of the product and cover it all with grape leaves. If the product begins to float, then press down the mass with an inverted plate of a suitable diameter. Cover the pan with a lid. Cook the contents over low heat for 45-50 minutes after boiling.

In a steamer. Here everything is much simpler, because the dolma will be covered with steam in any case. You just need to place the blanks in the appropriate bowl (for this, they usually use a stand with holes so that the juice does not accumulate and soften the leaves too much) and set the timer for 1 hour. If the device takes a long time to start up, then we note the hour from the moment the steam is supplied.

In a slow cooker. There are two approaches you can use here. The first involves processing the semi-finished product, as in a saucepan. In this case, everything is organized in exactly the same way, the “Extinguishing” mode is set and the device is started for 50 minutes. Or you can steam the dolma by placing it in a special basket. Then you need to pour some water into the bowl, assemble the structure, set the “Steam” mode and set the timer for 1 hour.

In the microwave. This option allows you to cook a semi-finished product in literally minutes. It is necessary to place the component tightly in a deep heat-resistant bowl, add a little salt, pour melted butter over the workpiece (a couple of tablespoons) and pour in a glass of water or broth. Cover the contents of the dish with a plate or lid and cook on medium power for 15 minutes.

It is not recommended to boil dolma in a pressure cooker, because... It will be difficult to choose the optimal temperature and duration of exposure. But a pressure cooker will give good results. The holding time will also be from 50 minutes to an hour. As a last resort, the semi-finished product can be boiled in a colander secured over a pan of boiling water.

Classic dolma recipe

Dolma is a wonderful oriental dish that will be an excellent decoration for both festive and everyday tables. And what can we say about the usefulness of this delicious dish! Grape leaves contain a lot of dietary fiber, which improves digestion and stimulates metabolic processes in the body.

Frequent consumption of grape leaves improves vision, potency and slows down the aging process. This is probably why dolma is so valued among eastern centenarians.

Dolma has many different cooking options, but I will tell you the recipe as close as possible to the traditional one.

Ingredients:

50 pcs of salted grape leaves (fresh can be used);
500 ml of water or meat broth for cooking dolma;

For filling:

0.5 kg of minced meat (lamb + beef or pork + beef);
0.5 tbsp. rice;
2 large onions;
a small amount of vegetable oil for frying;
small bunches of greens: mint, basil, parsley;
zira - a pinch;
salt;
ground black pepper;
Preparation:

Preparation:

Rice must be thoroughly washed 5-6 times until the water becomes clear. Next, pour boiling water over our rice so that the water lightly covers it and leave to swell. This way the rice will absorb water and will not take away the juice from the minced meat, which will make the dish more juicy.
Or, you can boil the rice until half cooked. To do this, rinse the rice well, add water, bring the water to a boil and cook for about a minute over medium heat.
Chop the onion very finely and set the frying pan to heat up.
Add vegetable oil to a heated frying pan and add onions. Fry the onion, stirring evenly, until transparent.
When the onion has become transparent, pour our slightly swollen rice into the pan. Stir evenly so that the rice absorbs the onion juice. After this, the dolma filling will become even tastier. Remove the pan from the heat and leave to cool.
We chop the parsley very finely and put it in a deep bowl in which we will prepare the filling for the minced dolma.
Add the minced meat to the parsley.
Add spices, salt and pepper. Mix.
Add onion and rice to the minced meat. Mix thoroughly again.
While the minced meat is infusing, we will prepare the grape leaves. For dolma, you need to use young green leaves, and they should be collected in the spring. Such leaves are preserved for a year in advance in lightly salted water. Jars with preparations can be found on the market from private traders with pickles.
Carefully straighten the finished grape leaves and remove the petioles. We go through each sheet, putting the damaged ones aside. We will also need them, but not for wrapping dolma, but for lining the cauldron.
If you use fresh young leaves, then before cooking they need to be poured with boiling water and kept in this form for about 10 minutes.
We lay out the grape leaves with the smooth side down, the veins should be directed upward.
Place some minced meat closer to the middle of the sheet.
Cover the filling with the bottom edge of the leaf.
Next, we bend the sides of the grape leaf while continuing to cover the filling.
We roll up our first dolma into a tight tube.
We roll up the rest of the dolma using the same technology.
Place some of the prepared grape leaves on the bottom of the cauldron in 1-2 layers.
Next, lay out the dolma, seams down, in several layers.
Cover the dolma placed in the cauldron with the remaining grape leaves.
Pour in meat broth or water until the liquid lightly covers the dolma. Place a plate on top and, if necessary, place a weight on top. The latter is necessary so that the dolma does not unfold during the cooking process.
Place the cauldron on the fire and bring to a boil. When the water boils, reduce the heat to low and continue cooking for 1-1.5 hours at a slightly noticeable simmer. Then remove the cauldron from the heat and leave to brew for 10-20 minutes.

The most delicious dolma is ready. Serve it with sour cream or sour cream and garlic sauce. Bon appetit!

Recipe in a slow cooker

Ingredients:

5 kg minced meat;
20 grape leaves;
1 onion;
4 tbsp. spoons of rice;
50 g butter;
50 grams of sunflower oil;
1 bunch of greens;
salt and spices to taste.

Preparation:

We wash the rice. Turn on the multicooker, pour in vegetable oil and, using the “frying” mode, fry the chopped onion until golden brown.
In a small bowl, mix minced meat, fried onions, rice, spices, chopped herbs and butter.
Place the filling on pre-prepared leaves, form envelopes and carefully place them in the slow cooker, seam side down. Fill with hot water to cover the envelopes and turn on the “quenching” mode for 1 hour.
Cooking dolma in a slow cooker is easy and simple, and most importantly, delicious.

Vegetarian recipe

Ingredients:

grape leaves, fresh or pickled;
one and a half glasses of rice;
three medium-sized onions;
feather onions, dill, parsley and mint;
vegetable oil;
juice from one medium-sized lemon;
salt;
ground black pepper.

Preparation:

Peel the onions, wash and cut into small squares. Wash, dry and chop the greens. Rinse the rice thoroughly as well.
In a well-heated frying pan with vegetable oil, fry the chopped onion until translucent, then add rice and chopped herbs to it, season with salt, pepper, lemon juice, pour a glass of boiling water and completely evaporate the liquid.
Pour boiling water over fresh grape leaves and leave for 10 minutes. Pickled - rinse. Remove the petioles, arrange the leaves with the veins facing up, spread the rice-vegetable mixture on them in small portions, and roll up oblong envelopes.
Place a plate on the bottom of the pan, place the prepared dolma on it in dense rows, and cover with another plate.
Pour boiling water to cover the top layer of grape envelopes, cover with a lid and cook until the rice is completely cooked - 20 minutes.
Vegetarian dolma should be served cold. The calorie content of such a dish does not exceed 150 units per hundred grams.