How to cook dolma in grape leaves: recipe

In Russian cuisine, such a dish as cabbage rolls is widely known. It is minced meat wrapped in cabbage leaves. However, many housewives also cook lean cabbage rolls with mushrooms or vegetables inside. But in the Caucasian cuisine, the filling based on boiled rice is wrapped in grape leaves - fresh or pickled. This dish is called dolma. Small "cabbage rolls" wrapped in grape leaves are traditionally boiled in meat broth and served with sour cream sauce. Each kitchen has its own secrets of cooking this dish. We will talk about how to cook dolma in our article. We will offer you some interesting recipes, including for the oven and slow cooker.

Features of preparation and recommendations

Most of the advice from experienced chefs on how to cook dolma comes down to preparing leaves for this dish.

Firstly, they should be collected only in the spring. Old grape leaves are only suitable for laying them on the bottom of the pan during cooking.

Secondly, it is advisable to salt the leaves in advance in a jar. Then in the finished dish they will be more tender and soft.

Thirdly, hard veins should be cut out. They can ruin the taste of the dish.

Marinating Dolma Leaves

Traditionally, salty (pickled) grape leaves are used to prepare this dish. But this does not mean that you can go to any shrub and pick plenty of them. For dolma, only white grape leaves are suitable. They should be young, relatively clean, with a glossy surface and without coarse veins.

Marinating grape leaves is carried out in the following sequence:

1. Leaves (60 pcs.) Torn from a shrub of a suitable variety are soaked in a bowl of cold water for about 1 hour.
2. On the stove in a large pan, boiling water is prepared for blanching.
3. After time, the soaked leaves are dropped into boiling water for exactly 1 minute and immediately transferred to a clean and deep bowl.
4. On a flat surface, the cooled leaves are stacked in piles of 10 pieces each. Their edges are bent toward the center. After that, the stack is rolled up and folded into a clean jar of a suitable size.
5. Similarly, the remaining leaves are prepared. All of them are sent to the bank.
6. Spices are poured on top: dry mustard and salt (1 tsp each), a pinch of ground black pepper. Piles of leaves are poured with boiling water.
7. The can is closed with a capron lid and sent to a cold place to insist for three months.
8. After this time, you can begin to prepare a real dolma from pickled grape leaves.

Cooking the filling for the dish

It is no coincidence that in the Caucasus, rice-based minced meat is wrapped in grape, not cabbage leaves, because they contain a whole mass of substances useful for the body. Therefore, at the end of spring, while the leaves are still young and glossy, it is recommended to collect and pickle them in order to enjoy the pleasant taste of this oriental dish in winter.

For a classic dolma you will need 50 pieces of pickled grape leaves and 500 ml of meat broth. They must be prepared in advance. Further, in this sequence, the filling is prepared:

1. Half a glass of rice is poured into a bowl and washed 5-6 times in cold water until it becomes clear.
2. Pure rice is poured with boiling water and set aside for a few minutes. During this time, he should steam off well. Or you can cook rice on the stove until half cooked.
3. Onions are fried in a pan with vegetable oil (2 pcs.). Once it becomes transparent, steamed rice is added to it. Together with the onion, it cooks for a few more minutes.
4. In a separate bowl, 500 g of minced meat (lamb and beef) is mixed with finely chopped parsley, dried basil, mint, salt and pepper.
5. The meat part of the filling is combined with rice.
6. Now you can start the formation of "stuffed cabbage".

Dolma cooking technology at home

As mentioned above, young grape leaves harvested in the spring should be used for this dish. They are canned for a year in advance, and if necessary, used for cooking dolma.

In grape leaves, the stiff petiole should be removed. It will only interfere with the formation of "stuffed cabbage". If there is damage on the leaves, do not rush to throw them away. They will be needed for the substrate in the cauldron.

Now you can start the formation of "stuffed cabbage":

1. Arrange the leaves with the smooth side down and the veins up.
2. Closer to the middle lay out the filling.
3. Fold in the bottom of the sheet, and then the sides.
4. Roll up the sheet with a tube.
5. Prepare the rest of the dolma in the same way. From the above amount of minced meat should be 50-60 pieces of products.

Grape leaves are distributed along the bottom of the cauldron, and dolma is laid out on top with a seam down. Top “cabbage rolls” are covered with the remaining leaves and filled with water or broth. It is recommended to use a flat plate as the load, which will not allow the products to turn around.

Preparing dolma over low heat for about 1.5 hours. 20 minutes after the end of cooking, the dish can be served at the table.

Dolma sauce

Unlike traditional cabbage rolls, such an oriental dish is not stewed in sauce, but in meat broth or water. And this is enough to make dolma juicy and tasty. But the finished dish is served already with the sauce, and ideally it should be sour cream. If desired, garlic and herbs are added to it.

Dolma sauce is prepared very simply:

1. 200 ml of sour cream is laid out in a bowl.
2. Dill is finely chopped.
3. Garlic is squeezed through a press.
4. All ingredients are added to sour cream.
5. The sauce is thoroughly mixed and laid out on top on a dolma. Add salt and black pepper if desired.

Dolma in tomato sauce (fresh leaves)

The next option is to cook a popular Caucasian dish is to perform this procedure:

1. Fresh grape leaves (60-70 pcs.) Are poured with boiling water for 10 minutes. After that, they need to be pulled out of the water and cool.
2. Rice (100 g) is thoroughly washed several times and boiled until half cooked. It can also be poured with boiling water for 20 minutes, then drained of water, and add the swollen cereal to the minced meat (600 g).
3. Finely chopped 1 onion, a bunch of parsley and cilantro.
4. Minced rice is combined with chopped onions and herbs. Salt and black pepper are added to taste.
5. A spoon of the filling is laid out on a wide part of the grape leaf, after which it is wrapped, like a traditional stuffed cabbage.
6. Formed products are laid out in a pan and poured with sauce. For its preparation in vegetable oil, 2 onions are fried, 6-7 sliced ​​tomatoes, salt and pepper are added. As soon as the tomatoes start juice, 200 ml of broth is poured. Immediately add suneli hops (2 tbsp) and a few cloves of garlic.
7. Dolma in grape leaves is cooked for about 45 minutes under a lid over low heat. Served with tomato sauce in which it was stewed.

Slow cooker dolma recipe

The kitchen assistant greatly facilitates the life of the housewives in the kitchen. It’s not difficult to cook dolma in it, as in a thick-walled pan on the stove:

1. First you need to make the filling. To do this, mix minced meat (400 g) with sautéed onion, washed raw rice (3 tbsp.), Salt, finely chopped herbs and a slice of butter (40 g).
2. Put the filling on fresh or salty leaves. Wrap items like traditional cabbage rolls and send them to the multicooker bowl. Distribute dolma in a slow cooker should be layers, and between each of them do not forget to lay out slices of lemon.
3. Fill the dish with water so that it barely covers the product.
4. Set the "Extinguishing" cooking mode to 90 minutes. After the specified time, the dish will be ready.

Dolma in the oven

Below we offer a recipe for cooking oriental dishes not on the stove, but in the oven:

1. For dolma, 5 tablespoons of boiled steamed rice and 300 g of ground beef are taken.
2. The onion for the filling is previously passivated in vegetable oil until golden brown. Once the vegetable fry has cooled, it is combined with the rice-meat mass.
3. To taste, salt, pepper, greens, hops-suneli are added to the filling.
4. Prepared minced meat is laid out in the middle of a blanched with boiling water or salt leaf and wrapped in a roll. Similarly, all products are formed.
5. Dolma is laid out in a baking dish and filled with water. From above, the dishes are covered or covered with foil.
6. In the oven at a temperature of 170 degrees, cook dolma, as on the stove, should be 1 hour. The finished dish is served with sauce.

Lean dolma

The following dish will help diversify the diet in the post. The dolma filling according to the home recipe includes only rice, herbs and spices. But from this the dish turns out to be no less satisfying and tasty.

To prepare the filling in a pan, onion (2 pcs.) Is sautéed in ¼ cup of olive oil. After a couple of minutes, rice washed in clean water (2 ½ cups) is added to it. As soon as the oil is absorbed into the cereal, you can add water (2 tbsp.) And add salt. Next, the rice will be cooked in a pan under the lid until all the liquid has been absorbed. In the cooled mass add green onions, dill, a few leaves of mint and parsley. Finished filling is wrapped in leaves.

Dolma is laid out in a pot with a thick bottom. Juice of two lemons is squeezed on top and a cup of olive oil is added. Dolma is poured with water and sent to the stove for 1 hour.