Dolma in grape leaves. Dolma recipes
Important and useful facts about dolma
Before you start cooking dolma or boiling a semi-finished product, you should learn more about the features and characteristics of this dish. This will allow you to get the most delicious and aromatic delicacy, and not boiled minced meat in a shell of grape leaves.
- A real Armenian dish is made from minced lamb, but beef or pork products are also acceptable. But poultry meat in this case is considered an absolutely unsuccessful option.
- Dolma does not need to be boiled in water. The dish will turn out to be more juicy and rich if you use meat broth or a bouillon cube as a medium.
- In addition to grape leaves, minced meat is wrapped in eggplant leaves, beets and even sorrel.
- By the way, the leaves are not necessarily taken fresh, salted leaves no less successfully cope with the task. When choosing a fresh component, you need to remember that it should be light, i.e. young. But it is better to refuse from very large and dark elements, no matter how many of them you process, you cannot achieve the desired degree of softness.
Tip: If you want to give a familiar dish a more refined taste, then in addition to onions, herbs and peppers, it is recommended to add a little grated carrots and pumpkin to the minced meat.
- Boiling water is used to soften the grape leaves. Young elements are simply scalded, and older ones are boiled for 3-5 minutes. Given the fact that this nuance is often ignored by manufacturers of semi-finished products, it is better to cook dolma from start to finish on your own.
- It is worth considering that this dish should be steamed, and not fried, so we must lay out the bottom of the cooking container with leaves (grape or at least cabbage). An additional plus of this technique is that the dolma will turn out to be much juicier.
Ready-made dolma does not have to be served hot right away. The dish will seem no less tasty after it cools down, only it must be served with herbs and lemon. Sour cream sauce will be a good addition.
Dolma Cooking Tips
Sometimes no tricks of boiling dolma help. Most likely, this simply indicates the low quality of the blanks. In order not to face such a problem, you need to cook the dish yourself, especially since it is quite simple.
- To prepare minced meat, we need 300 g of lamb, an onion, three tablespoons of rice, salt and pepper. Additionally, we take 7-8 salted or fresh grape leaves, 4 cloves of garlic, herbs, half a glass of sour cream.
- Soak rice for 10 minutes in hot water, mix with minced mutton, grated onion, add salt. If salted leaves are used, pour boiling water over them and leave for 12 hours to get rid of excess salt. Cut off the cuttings from the elements immediately before use.
- We spread the sheet, the cooked minced meat on it, wrap it so that it turns out to be a small sausage. We boil the resulting blanks in one of the above ways.
- While dolma is cooking, prepare a sauce of sour cream and grated garlic. Serve the finished dish with sauce and chopped herbs.
It is worth considering that the quality of the leaves used can affect the taste characteristics of the finished product. If dolma is prepared from fresh leaves, then salt the minced meat well and do not forget to add water in which the components are prepared. But salty leaves, even soaked, will fill the product with the required degree of salinity anyway. But in this case, the minced meat will have to be slightly salted and pepper. In general, all the nuances of processing semi-finished products become apparent only with experience.
Dolma in grape leaves – a classic recipe with lamb
Food components:
- minced lamb – 1 kg;
- rice – 200 g without top;
- onion – 2 heads;
- grape leaves – 15 pcs.;
- mint – 2-3 pcs.;
- salt, ground pepper – to taste.
Dolma classic recipe:
- Put the grape leaves in a sieve, pour boiling water over, let the water drain.
- Chop the onions finely.
- Boil the rice until almost completely cooked, about 10 minutes, after boiling. Rinse.
- Combine onion, minced lamb and rice, sprinkle with salt and spices, put fresh mint leaves. Mix the composition.
- Put the filling on steamed leaves (for 1 bite), roll up with an envelope.
- Put the “envelopes” in a cauldron, pour boiling water so that it is 1 finger higher. Cover, cook for 45-50 minutes.
In just an hour, a delicious treat will be ready!
Ingredients
| grape leaves (fresh or salted) | 40-50 pcs |
|---|---|
| water or broth (lamb, beef or chicken) for cooking dolma | 500 ml |
| minced meat (lamb; lamb + beef or pork + beef) | 500-600 g |
| round grain rice (for example, “arborio” or another variety of starchy round rice for cereals) | 4-6 tbsp |
| onions (medium or large) | 4-5 pcs |
| butter | 50-70 g |
| vegetable oil | 50-70 ml |
| basil greens, mint, dill, cilantro | on a small beam |
| zira (ground or pounded in a mortar) – a pinch | |
| freshly ground black pepper | |
| salt | |
| sour cream, natural yogurt or yogurt | 1 glass |
| garlic | 4-6 teeth |
| basil, cilantro, dill or parsley greens | |
| salt |
Cooking description:
It is almost impossible to establish where exactly dolma was first made. It was popular among the peoples of the Ottoman Empire, it was prepared and cooked in Russia, Turkey, the Balkans, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Egypt, Greece and many other countries around the world. Dolma belongs to oriental cuisine, most often this name is understood as a meat dish in grape leaves. The leaves are also special … but first things first, read my recipe on how to cook dolma in grape leaves.
Purpose: For lunch / For dinner
Main ingredient: Poultry / Chicken / Grape leaves
Dish: Hot dishes / Dolma
How to cook dolma
How to cook dolma in a saucepan
1 Put grape leaves tightly in a saucepan with a thick bottom, put dolma, fill with water (water should cover the dolma with a margin of 1 centimeter).
2 Cover the top with grape leaves.
3 To prevent the rolls from unfolding, cover with an inverted plate, smaller in diameter than the pan. Close the pan with a lid.
4 Put on the smallest heat and cook for 45 minutes.
How to cook dolma in a multicooker
1 Pour water into the multicooker bowl, and put dolma into a container intended for cooking.
2 Set the “Quenching” mode and cook for one hour.
3 If the leaves are still tough.
How to cook dolma in a double boiler
1 Pour water into the double boiler, put the dolma in the bowl of the double boiler.
2 Cook dolma for 1.5 hours.
How to cook dolma in the microwave
1 Put a thick layer of dolma in a deep dish suitable for microwave oven.
2 Salt a little, pour melted butter (50 grams) on top and a glass of water or broth.
3 Close the top with a microwave lid or other plate.
4 Turn on the microwave at 800 W for 15 minutes.
How to cook semi-finished dolma
In a saucepan
1 Put dolma into a saucepan in 1 layer, pour in water or broth so as to cover the frozen semi-finished product.
2 Put on a low heat and cook for 20 minutes.
In the microwave
1 Put dolma on a plate, pour in 1 glass of broth, cook for 10 minutes at 600 watts.
How to cook dolma at home
Foods
Salted grape leaves – 7-8 sheets
Lamb – 300 grams
Onions – 1 large head or 2 small
Rice – 70 grams
Sour cream – 150 grams
Garlic – 4 cloves
Parsley, dill, cilantro, celery, black pepper, red pepper, salt – to taste
Preparation of dolma
1 Pour salted grape leaves in boiling water and soak for 12 hours to release excess salt.
2 You need to cut off a stalk from each of the sheets.
3 Rinse the rice, pour hot water, pass the lamb and onion through a meat grinder a couple of times, cut and add herbs, spices to taste.
4 Add rice soaked for 10 minutes to the minced meat, mix well.
5 Put a grape leaf on the table, on top of it – half a tablespoon of minced meat and twist gently to make small sausages.
6 Put dolma in a thick-walled saucepan, cover with grape leaves, put a plate on top so that the dolma does not open during cooking.
7 Carefully pour in cold water so that the top grape leaves are slightly covered.
8 Boil dolma over low heat for 45 minutes.
Serve hot boiled dolma with sauce and herbs.
How to cook minced chicken breast dolma
What if you don’t like red meat? There is a way out – cook dolma with chicken. Yes, perhaps it will not be dolma in the classical sense, but the dish will still turn out to be very tasty, because the main ingredient – grape leaves – will be available. Pre-boil rice for 5 minutes in this case, it is imperative, because minced chicken is cooked quite quickly.
To make the dish more rich, dolma is cooked in chicken broth, but this is not a prerequisite. So is the addition of mayonnaise and butter. But keep in mind – all together makes the taste of the final version of the dish more juicy, bright and rich, so it is better to follow the recipe completely. In a leaner version, the broth can be replaced with plain water.
You will need:
- chicken fillet – 500 gr.;
- rice – 100 gr.;
- onions – 70 rubles;
- butter – 50 gr.;
- chopped walnuts – 2 tbsp. l .;
- mayonnaise – 2 tbsp. l .;
- chicken broth – 1 l.;
- salt – 2/3 tsp;
- ground black pepper to taste;
- leaves of grapes.
Dolma with yogurt sauce
Onions 1 head
Lamb 500 g
Grape leaves in brine 1 can
Matsoni 400 g
Dill 60 g
Cilantro 60 g
Mint 10 g
Garlic 5 cloves
Dried basil ½ teaspoon
Ground red pepper to taste
Ground black pepper to taste
Thyme ½ teaspoon
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Post source: lastici.ru