How to cook dolma ready. How much to cook dolma from grape leaves? harvesting grape leaves

Batteries, radiators 22.07.2021
Batteries, radiators

At home, to boil dolma, you can use a variety of devices. The time taken for this process will depend on the intervention option. For example, to prepare a product from minced meat and grape leaves (dolma) in the traditional way, you will have to spend about 45-50 minutes.

In a slow cooker and a double boiler, it needs to be cooked 1 hour. The fastest semi-finished product is boiled in the microwave, it takes no more 15 minutes. But when choosing the optimal exposure option, it is necessary to be guided not by how much time it takes to bring the component to readiness, but by the taste and aroma of the final result.

Important and useful facts about dolma

Before you start cooking dolma or boil 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 products made from beef or pork are also acceptable. But poultry meat in this case is considered an absolutely unsuccessful option.
  • Dolma does not have to be boiled in water. The dish will turn out 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 no less successfully cope with the task. When choosing a fresh component, you need to remember that it must be light, i.e. young. But it is better to refuse very large and dark elements, no matter how much you process them, you cannot achieve the desired degree of softness.

Tip: If you want to give a familiar dish a more refined taste, then it is recommended to add minced meat in addition to onions, herbs and peppers, some grated carrots and pumpkins.

  • Boiling water is used to soften grape leaves. Young elements are simply scalded, and age 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 beginning to end on your own.
  • It is worth considering that this dish should be steamed, and not fried, so the bottom of the cooking container must be laid out with leaves (grape or at least cabbage). An additional plus of this technique is that dolma will be much juicier.

Ready dolma does not have to be served immediately hot. The dish will seem no less tasty even after it has cooled down, only it must be served with herbs and lemon. A good addition would be sour cream sauce.

How to cook dolma?

In the case of boiling dolma, an important role is played not only by how long the processing will continue, but also how to organize it. Here are the 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, we 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 we press down the mass with an inverted plate of a suitable diameter. Close the saucepan with a lid. Boil the contents on low heat for 45-50 minutes after boiling.

  • In a steamer. Everything is much simpler here, because dolma will be steamed anyway. You just need to put 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 starts for a long time, then we detect the hour from the moment the steam is supplied.

  • In a multicooker. Two approaches can be used here. The first involves processing a 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 starts up for 50 minutes. Or you can steam the dolma by putting 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 just minutes. It is necessary to tightly lay the component in a deep heat-resistant dish, add a little salt, pour over the workpieces with melted butter (a couple of tablespoons) and pour a glass of water or broth. We close the contents of the dishes with a plate or lid, cook at medium power for 15 minutes.

It is not recommended to boil dolma in a pressure cooker, because. it will be difficult to find the optimal temperature and duration of exposure. But the mantle cooker will give a good result. The exposure time will also be from 50 minutes to an hour. In extreme cases, the semi-finished product can be boiled in a colander, fixed over a pot of boiling water.

Sometimes no tricks for 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, 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 hot water, mix with lamb passed through a meat grinder, grated onion, add salt. If salted leaves are used, they must be poured with boiling water and left for 12 hours to get rid of excess salt. Immediately before use, we cut the cuttings from the elements.
  • We spread the sheet, cooked minced meat on it, wrap it so that we get a small sausage. The resulting blanks are boiled by one of the methods listed above.
  • While dolma is cooking, prepare the 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 may affect the taste characteristics of the finished product. If you cook dolma from fresh leaves, then salt the minced meat well and do not forget to add water in which the components are cooked. But salty leaves, even soaked, will fill the product with the desired degree of salinity without that. But in this case, the minced meat will have to be slightly salted and peppered. In general, all the nuances of processing semi-finished products become apparent only with experience.

Dolma from grape leaves is a very tasty and not very difficult to prepare dish that everyone can make at home, but to make dolma tasty, you need to know how to cook it properly, so in this article we will take a closer look at how much time and how to cook dolma in a saucepan.

How much to cook dolma from grape leaves

The cooking time of dolma differs from ordinary cabbage rolls, with which many people compare it, while regardless of whether it is made from fresh grape leaves or canned ones, the cooking time remains the same:

  • How long to cook dolma in a saucepan? Dolma is cooked on average for 55-60 minutes over low heat, after boiling water in a saucepan.
  • How much to cook dolma in a slow cooker? In a slow cooker in the “Extinguishing” mode, dolma is boiled for an average of 50 minutes until cooked.
  • How long to cook dolma in a double boiler? In a double boiler, on average, they cook 1 hour for a couple in a double boiler.

Having learned how long it takes to cook dolma from grape leaves, we will further consider the process of its preparation and cooking.

How to cook dolma in a saucepan

Cooking dolma is not a complicated process, the main thing is to do everything consistently and follow the tips below:

  • We prepare a pan with a thick bottom, put 1-2 layers of grape leaves on the bottom in it and then carefully lay out the dolma, seam down, tightly applying to each other in several layers.
  • Fill the dolma with cold water or broth so that the liquid is 1 cm higher than the dolma. If the dolma floats, you can press it with an inverted plate during cooking.
  • On medium heat, bring the water in a saucepan to a boil, then reduce the heat and over low heat, cover the saucepan with a lid, cook dolma for 55-60 minutes.
  • After cooking, we set aside the pan from the heat and let the dolma brew in the broth for 10-15 minutes so that it is juicier.

Note: to make dolma tastier, you can prepare a quick and tasty sauce after it is cooked. The recipe for dolma sauce is very simple: finely chop the greens, squeeze out 2 cloves of garlic, salt to taste and mix with sour cream.

In conclusion to the article, it can be noted that knowing how many minutes and how to cook dolma in grape leaves in a saucepan correctly, you can quickly and tasty cook it at home for yourself and your loved ones. Your reviews and helpful tips, how to cook dolma in grape leaves (with beef, pork or lamb), leave in the comments to the article and share it on social networks if it was useful to you.

Not all housewives know how to cook dolma at home. It seems like a rather complicated dish, although in reality you will need little: rice, some minced meat, leaves, special spices and a special sauce. In this article you will find a selection best recipes and learn the tricks of cooking dolma from different peoples of the world.

In the Caucasus, not a single solemn feast can do without dolma from grape or fresh leaves. Whether they are waiting for a dear guest, celebrating a wedding, celebrating a birthday - the hostess turns a whole pan of fragrant "tubes" with meat filling. Dolma is delicious hot and even cold, and it seems that it is absolutely impossible to get enough of it! Especially if you dip it in a spicy white sauce, eating warm pita bread.

Dolma is an excellent hot appetizer.

The right to invent dolma is disputed by Armenia, Azerbaijan and even Uzbekistan. But varieties of dolma (or, as it is called in another way, tolma) are also found in Turkey and the Balkan countries. Culinary historians suggest that the dish was “inherited” from the Ottoman Empire, where it was constantly prepared at receptions for entire palaces. It is clear that since the time of Sultan Suleiman, the recipe has gone through a lot of changes. But the essence has not changed.

To prepare classic dolma, we need:

  • a kilogram of minced meat (any, but not chicken!);
  • grape leaves (it is difficult to guess the number, it all depends on the number of eaters, at least 50 pieces);
  • large onion;
  • egg;
  • a handful of white rice;
  • a large bunch of greens - parsley, dill, and (this is a must!) cilantro;
  • salt and pepper to taste.

First of all, boil the rice until half cooked and mix it with minced meat. We cut the onion, greens into small cubes, add one chicken a raw egg, salt and pepper to taste. We knead the minced meat so that it turns out to be dense, uniform, well away from the hands.

Pour boiling water over fresh grape leaves, and then let them cool. It remains to masterfully twist the dolminki. To do this, put the meat filling on the sheet (on the rough side) and pack it, bending the edges to the center.

Ready-made dolminkas resemble tubes or cigars - whoever likes what association. We lay them on the bottom of a large pan, pressing tightly to each other. It remains to pour meat broth or water (to the height of one thumb), press everything with a plate of a slightly smaller diameter, let the water boil and simmer until the leaves and minced meat are ready. The total cooking time from the moment of boiling is 40-60 minutes.

We serve the finished dolma on a large dish, and next to it we put a white sauce of yogurt, garlic and herbs. We put large bunches of greens, warm pita bread on the table, and watch how our dolma is eaten in a matter of minutes!

In a slow cooker

A slow cooker makes life easier for any housewife, significantly reducing cooking time. Dolma is no exception. Prepare dolma according to any recipe, put it in dense layers on the bottom of the multibowl, fill it with water, start the “cooking” mode.

Why press the dolma? So our dolminki will not fall apart during cooking, and it will not be necessary to remove the foam from the broth.

If you don’t want the leaves to “untie” in the process, and the dolma to lose its shape, do it simply - cook it with the lid open, laying a light oppression plate on top with a diameter slightly smaller than the bowl. Usually, it takes 30 minutes to cook in a slow cooker, and, which is nice, you can safely get down to business - the smart device itself will notify you when the cooking process is over.

Cooking according to the Azerbaijani recipe

Remember the legendary dialogue from the movie "Mimino" between an Armenian and an Azerbaijani. “Do you like dolma? No. It's because you don't know how to cook it." In these two countries, the right to call dolma their national dish has been disputed for hundreds of years. It is curious that the Ministry of Culture of Azerbaijan has already applied to UNESCO with a request to recognize dolma as an intangible heritage of the country. In the meantime, UNESCO is making decisions, let's learn the tricks of preparing branded Azerbaijani dolma.


Dolma in Azerbaijani is very satisfying, tender and unusually tasty.

The ideal size of the leaves is the palm of a young woman, and the “fingers” of the dolma should be small and neat. Big dolma is a sign of a lazy craftswoman.

Cooking in this way:

  1. For a signature recipe, you will need a kilogram of veal, rice and tender grape castings. They should be thin, young, and even better, plucked from a tree in their own juice. In winter, dolma from pickled grape leaves will go with a bang, but still its taste will be completely different. In Azerbaijan, fresh leaves are preferred to pickled ones.
  2. We scroll the veal with fat tail fat through a meat grinder, add onion, herbs there, pour warm boiled water (about a glass). The consistency should be slightly liquid, otherwise, the Azerbaijanis are sure, the dolma comes out dry.
  3. Pour the minced meat with half a glass of round rice.
  4. We twist the dolma, as in the classic recipe, forming neat “fingers”.
  5. We put them in a pan in dense layers.
  6. Fill with water.
  7. We press with a plate.
  8. Let the saucepan boil.
  9. We bring it to readiness in about an hour.
  10. Turn off, let cool.
  11. Lay out on a flat dish.

We serve dolma with natural yogurt sauce with garlic (you can add a bunch of any chopped greens there), invite guests and enjoy!

Dolma in Armenian - step by step

Classic dolma with grape leaves in Armenia is always prepared with three types of meat - beef, pork and lamb, which are mixed in equal amounts.

Cilantro, basil, parsley and dill are always put in the Armenian dolma. other spices - at the discretion of the hostess.

The recipe looks like this:

  1. 500 g of beef, pork and beef are scrolled through a meat grinder.
  2. Add finely chopped onion.
  3. We cut a bunch of greens.
  4. We add salt.
  5. Add black pepper.
  6. Rice is washed and poured into minced meat. The amount of rice should be 2-3 times less than meat. You need to understand that in the process of cooking it will boil.
  7. Stir the mince thoroughly.
  8. Pour boiling water over fresh grape leaves. In winter, pickled, salted leaves, thoroughly washed from salt, are used in Armenia. Fresh ones are also preferred in summer.
  9. Flip the leaves upside down.
  10. Put a little minced meat in the middle of each (about one and a half teaspoons).
  11. From the leaves we form dolmushki, resembling thin cigars. You should not twist them tightly, because the rice should boil.
  12. Line the bottom of a large saucepan with large grape leaves.
  13. From above we distribute the dolminki, firmly pressing them to each other.
  14. Fill the dolma with water a couple of centimeters above the tubes - it should cover our grape "cigars" by about a thumb.
  15. Place a small lid on top.

Let the water boil, and then reduce the fire to a minimum and simmer until the grape leaf is soft for 40-50 minutes. While the dolma is cooking, prepare a delicious sauce of yogurt, garlic and herbs. A modern sauce recipe allows you to use ready-made mayonnaise (high-quality!), Mixed with fresh sour cream, as a base. But yogurt or yogurt, of course, remain a priority.

Interestingly, in Armenia, any stuffed vegetables are called dolma. Zucchini, eggplant, tomatoes, quince, small cabbage rolls are stuffed with minced meat, in a word, all vegetables that can be stuffed with meat and stewed. The "chip" of the dish is that only the freshest and most fragrant fruits are used. By big holidays they prepare royal dolma: several types of stuffed vegetables are stewed in one large saucepan at the same time. They give each other flavors and turn out delicious!

With lamb and mint

In the Caucasus, there are families who cook dolma exclusively from lamb, and as a seasoning they always add mint leaves, without stems. Mint and lamb go together amazingly! Such dolma is spicy, tender and very fragrant. The main thing is not to overdo it with mint, because, as an active spice, it can kill the taste of lamb.


Dolma is a fantastically delicious dish.

Dolma will become even tastier the next day, when grape leaves and meat juices share flavors with each other.

For cooking, you can take any recipe you like above. We twist the lamb through a meat grinder, add onion, herbs, a bunch of mint leaves, season with salt, pepper and pour in a little rice. We knead the minced meat and sculpt the dolminki. Cook according to instructions classic recipe pressing with a light pressure.

Serve with white sauce, warm tortillas and fragrant herbal tea.

With matsoni sauce

Dolma from a semi-finished product is a very convenient preparation for any celebration. It is quite possible to make it a few days before the proposed holiday, freeze in the refrigerator and cook without defrosting. The taste will not be lost. And the favorite sour-milk product of all mountain peoples - matsoni will help to emphasize the dish.

Matsoni is a kind of curdled milk, but slightly less acidic. It is thick in itself and it is enough just to salt it, add garlic and herbs to make the taste rich. This white sauce is also low in calories, so eat it without fear of extra pounds.

Dolma seems like a troublesome dish. But only at first sight. In the Caucasus, whole families spin it, like dumplings in Russia, and the cooking process turns into an interesting event. Dolma is prepared with joy, they drink young wine, and then they all eat it together, enjoying the taste of dolma and communication. Try to cook dolma - discover a new hobby and a great companion dish.

Raw materials for canning must be discarded. Those leaves that are damaged, do not fit in shape, size or degree of maturity should be discarded. Simultaneously with rejection, petioles should be cut under the root.

The leaves must be folded into stacks of 10 pieces, and then folded in half. This is done in order not to lose count and to know how much tolma will turn out.

Leaves should be washed well on both sides.

Pour 1 liter of water into a wide saucepan and boil. Blanch each stack for 30-45 seconds until the color changes to light olive.

Spread the bleached leaves on a dish. For one half-liter jar, you need to prepare 12-13 piles. This must be done quickly so that the first batch of leaves does not have time to cool completely.

Then each stack, still hot, should be folded several times to make a tight rectangular bundle.

Place grape leaves in a clean jar. Glass containers and metal lids must be sterilized in advance.

From the remaining water after blanching, measure 200 ml. Add salt to it and bring to a boil. Pour the resulting brine through cheesecloth into a jar of leaves. Make sure there are no air pockets left. Water should cover the contents of the container by 1 cm.

Close the jar with a lid and turn over. You can use both screw caps, as well as those that are closed with a special key.

Allow the workpiece to cool at room temperature. Then turn over and store in a dark cabinet.

Note to the owner

Leaves preserved in this way should be washed under running water before use.

frozen grape leaves

This method is much easier and faster than the first, since the raw material does not need to be subjected to heat treatment.

The preparation itself (culling, trimming) is the same. In the same way, for the convenience of counting, the leaves are laid out in packs. Each pack is tightly rolled up. Then the rolls are placed in a plastic bag for freezing. So that the leaves do not turn around and do not break in ice cream, it is better to stuff the bag tightly and seal it with tape. Another option is to use special bags with a lock (latch).

Frozen leaves are dipped in boiling water for a few seconds before cooking dolma, and then used to stuff small cabbage rolls.

We thank Gayane Sargsyan for the recipe and photo.

Dolma is a type of stuffed cabbage wrapped in grape leaves. Grape leaves are a classic casing for dolma, and for stuffing for dolma, it is best to use lamb or prepare a mixture of beef and lamb.

How to cook dolma is known in almost all countries that were under the Ottoman yoke. They also know how to cook dolma in Ukraine and Russia, only this dish is called cabbage rolls.

What is dolma made of?

1. Pickled grape leaves - 40-50 pieces
2. Minced lamb (lamb with beef) - 500 grams
3. Onion - 2 onions
4. Rice - 100-150 grams
5. Parsley, cilantro, thyme, mint - a small bunch
6. Garlic - 2 heads
7. Salt and pepper to taste

Dolma - cooking recipe:

And now let's go directly to the recipe for making dolma. To prepare it, you need grape leaves, the minced meat itself and the sauce with which the dish is served.

Grape leaves for dolma:

For dolma, either fresh grape leaves or pickled ones are used.

If you decide to cook dolma from fresh grape leaves, then first rinse them, and only then pour boiling water over them and leave for 5-6 minutes.

If fresh leaves are not available to you, then you can purchase salted grape leaves.

If you purchased them, then soak them before using salted leaves. Just fill with enough warm water and leave overnight. During this time, excess salt should be removed from them.

If you could not find either fresh or salted leaves, then buy canned grape leaves in the store or in the bazaar.
Whichever option you use for dolma, in any case, before the cooking process, cut off the stalk from each of the leaves.

Sauce for dolma:

Ideally, dolma is served with matsoni sauce. But my family loves my own recipe sauce. To prepare the sauce, I mix sour cream and mayonnaise and add garlic and finely chopped greens. I mix it all up well. And the dolma sauce is ready.

How to do dolma:

1. Rinse the rice thoroughly and boil until half cooked. While the rice is cooking, pass the onion and meat through a meat grinder, add chopped herbs and spices to your liking.

Rice, already boiled until half cooked, rinse with cold water and add to the prepared minced meat. Then mix everything well. The filling for our dolma is ready.

2. Lay out the grape leaf on a cutting board. Put about 30 grams of minced meat on top of it (this is about 1 tablespoon) and fold the sheet with the filling into an envelope

3. Choose a pot for cooking dolma with a thick bottom. Cover the bottom of the pot completely with a layer of grape leaves. Then to each other, lay out dolma in dense layers.

Top the dolma again with a layer of grape leaves.

4. Now fill the contents of the pan with water so that the water is at the level of the upper grape leaves. If you use fresh grape leaves, then the water must be slightly salted.
Leave the dolma to languish over low heat for about 50-60 minutes.

5. Serve the finished dolma on the table hot, after decorating it with herbs and sauce.

Grapes are a wonderful plant. He gives us amazing berries that can be eaten fresh. You can cook a lot of goodies from them - raisins, jam, juice, wine ... Grape kvass is made from young green branches and leaves. And we'll talk about dolma. About this very tasty dish, which is so loved in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, in Central Asia, in southern republics former Soviet Union. In Moldova they are called cabbage rolls (with the accent on the first syllable). Dolma really resembles Slavic cabbage rolls, only the filling of minced meat, onions, rice and greens is wrapped not in a cabbage leaf, but in a grape leaf. And they turn out smaller than a pigeon. The taste is original. Grape delicate leaves give the dish a very pleasant sourness and aroma. Today we will talk about how to prepare grape leaves for the winter.

Not every grape leaf is suitable for dolma, but only young and healthy. You need to choose bright green, shiny, green grape varieties. In red varieties, they are more rigid and the edges are embossed. You need to collect leaves during flowering before processing. But since the leaves of the grapes grow constantly, you can collect them throughout the summer, before processing. No need to take leaves from the vine growing near the road.

It is important to properly process the foliage in order to fully reveal the aroma that will give dolma a special taste in winter.

harvesting grape leaves

And in order to be able to enjoy dolma at any time of the year, you need to take care of the preservation of grape leaves. This can be done in many ways: freeze, pickle, pickle, preserve. With any method of canning, the leaves must be prepared. They must be washed and dried, or lightly rubbed. It is advisable to slightly wither - the leaves become less brittle - it is easier to manipulate with them. Cut off the petioles.

Freeze

The simplest and fast way store grape leaves - freezing. Fold the prepared leaves in a pile of 10-15 pieces. Roll up, wrap in cling film or place in plastic bags. Place in freezer. The leaves become very fragile when frozen, so it is better to use a container. To prepare dolma, they are thawed at room temperature. Then scalded with boiling water. Then the useful qualities and vitamins are preserved in them as much as possible.

bottling

  • The container must first be washed well. To do this, pour 1 tsp inside. salt and baking soda, pour some water and shake the bottle vigorously. Then rinse with clean water and let it drain.
  • We put the leaves in 3-6 pieces (as it will turn out), we turn it into a thin tube so that it crawls into the neck of the bottle. We help to lay the leaves as tightly as possible with a thin long stick or a cocktail tube. Be careful not to tear the leaves! In addition to grape leaves, nothing should be in the bottle.
  • We press down, let out air, tightly close the lid.

Now we put it in storage in a closet, on the mezzanine, in the cellar. Putting the workpiece in the cold is contraindicated. With this method of processing, the product is stored for up to two years. When you want to cook dolma, cut the bottle. We take out the leaves from the container, fill it with cold water. On the leaves, there may be a yellowish coating - these are amino acids. Do not take such points as a sign of damage. We straighten, stuff with minced meat and cook.
An option for an amateur: we also fill the bottle with leaves, but add a little salt.

dry canning

Another easy way to preserve grape leaves is dry canning. To do this, we tightly lay the prepared leaves in layers of 10-15 pieces in clean glass jars, sprinkling them with salt (not much salt is needed). Next, they need to be sterilized in a hot oven for 5-10 minutes, roll up with lids. Store in a dark place.

Pickling

In this section, we will look at how to pickle grape leaves. Grape leaves for the winter for dolma can be pickled like ordinary vegetables. We've looked at several ways below.

1st way

To pickle the leaves we need:

  • Rinse and sterilize small glass jars.
  • Prepared grape leaves of about 8-14 pieces are rolled into tubes and tightly packed in jars.
  • The next step, pour boiling water for 5-10 minutes, then drain the liquid. Repeat the procedure. For the third time, pour boiling marinade over and roll up with a metal lid.
Marinade preparation

For 1 liter of water, add 1 tablespoon of salt, the same amount of sugar, and 2 tablespoons of 9 percent vinegar.

2nd way

Another way to pickle grape leaves for dolma.

  • Rinse under running water harvested crop, scalded with boiling water.
  • At the bottom of a sterilized glass jar we put 1-2 pcs. bay leaf, 4-5 peppercorns, 1-2 cloves. Lay the leaves carefully on top.
  • We prepare the marinade from 1 liter of warm boiled water, salt and sugar, 1 tbsp each. spoon and 1-2 tbsp. spoons of 9% vinegar.
  • Pour the resulting brine into a jar, put spices on top: Bay leaf, cloves, pepper.
  • Close with a plastic lid. After a day, pickled grape leaves for dolma are ready for use, but can be stored for a long time in a cool place.

You can also buy pickled grape leaves for dolma in the store, but as often happens, home-made preparations are always tastier. And the product pickled with your own hands corresponds to your taste preferences.

salting

Consider how to pickle the leaves. Below we have prepared three ways to prepare a salty product.

1st way

The leaves can be preserved in a 10% saline solution. Washed and tightly rolled leaves are tightly packed into prepared dishes, poured with non-hot brine. Close with plastic lids. Salted material, well stored at room temperature. Leaves prepared in this way should be kept a little before use. warm water about two hours, so we will remove excess salt.

2nd way

Grape leaves can be salted in a less saturated solution. We carry out manipulations as when pickling. Only instead of marinade we use hot brine with a salt content of about 2-3%.

3rd way

This salting method includes spices. We take scalded and rolled leaves, put them in clean jars of 0.5 liters. We make a mixture of:

  • salt - 1 teaspoon,
  • dry mustard - 1 teaspoon, cover the leaves with it,
  • add allspice (several peas).

Fill everything with boiling water, roll up the lids. Storage at room temperature.

For a long time in the East they did it even easier. The washed leaves were placed in a barrel, poured with steep brine, covered with a clean cloth and pressed down with a sinker from above.

Dry storage


And now, for the sake of which all our efforts are - Dolma!


  1. Cooking dolma in Armenian it begins with the preparation of grape leaves. To make dolma tasty, you need to use young grape leaves, no larger than a palm. Old leaves are coarser in structure and less juicy, so they are much less often used for this dish. Traditionally, leaves of white grape varieties are taken, although leaves of other varieties are also quite suitable. Wash grape leaves. Cut off the stems with a knife.
  2. Put them in a bowl and pour hot water. Leave the leaves to steam for 5 minutes. As soon as the leaves change color from green to brown, we can assume that they are ready for dolma.
  3. Rinse rice in two or three waters. Put it in boiling water and boil until half cooked. After that, discard in a colander. Rinse with water. Put on a plate.
  4. Prepare vegetables. Peel carrots and onions. Grind carrots on a medium or small grater.
  5. Dice the onion.
  6. Place ground beef or pork in a bowl of rice. Add chopped carrots and onions. Sprinkle the filling with spices and salt.
  7. Mix all filling ingredients.
  8. stuffing and grape leaves for dolma in Armenian are ready and you can proceed to direct cooking. Lay the vine leaf face down. Roll the stuffing in the form cutlets and place it in the center of the leaf, closer to the base of its stem.
  9. Roll the leaf into a tube.
  10. Bend the edges of the resulting roll inward with your fingers.
  11. Grape leaves are very plastic, and therefore the preparation of dolma should not cause difficulties. You can wrap dolma like cabbage rolls in another way, namely, with an envelope. Also arrange the filling, as in the first method. Fold the top of the sheet over the filling. Wrap the sides of the leaf towards the center.
  12. Roll the resulting workpiece into a tube. Form a dolma using any of the methods described. Wash the remaining grape leaves. Cover the bottom of the pot with them. Lay the dolma in it in layers and be sure to seam down.
  13. Pour the dolma with cold water or meat broth so that it covers it. If you use ordinary water to extinguish it, then it should be slightly salted, the broth may not be additionally salted.
  14. Cover the top of the pot with a flat plate. Be sure to put a weight on it. This is necessary so that during cooking the dolma does not fall apart and does not lose its appearance. Cook dolma over low heat for 40 minutes, avoiding a strong boil. During its extinguishing, you can add a little water if you see that it is not enough.
  15. Remove the saucepan with the finished dolma from the stove. Take the cargo and plate. Cover it with a lid and leave for another ten minutes. This will allow it to additionally steam in its own juice and become even tastier.

Dolma


Dolma this is a dish which includes: some kind of shell, more familiar - grape leaves, stuffing - minced meat with rice or rice with onions and herbs (lean dolma) and sauce, usually with garlic or sweet and sour. Dolma is widespread in many countries. In Greece, for example, this dish is called , in Turkey, Iran, Azerbaijan - , in Armenia, Georgia - tolma, in Russia - there is also a dish similar to dolma, these are cabbage rolls. Recipes for this dish are very diverse, of course, there are national features of cooking. Therefore, you can choose the recipe you like the most. Today I want to offer you a recipe for making dolma with walnuts, which was taught to me by an Armenian friend. So, tolma or dolma is an Armenian recipe.

What products do we need:

  • canned grape leaves - 1 can
  • minced lamb - 300 g + lamb bones for broth
  • minced beef - 500 g
  • large onions - 2 pcs
  • handful of walnuts
  • garlic - 4 cloves in minced meat + 5-6 cloves
  • boiled rice - 1/2 of the volume of minced meat
  • cilantro, parsley or dill
  • Bay leaf
  • ground black and red spicy pepper, black peas
  • 1/2 teaspoon curry seasoning
  • olive oil

For sauce:

  • Yogurt or fatty kefir or sour cream
  • garlic

Dolma step by step recipe:

  1. First we prepare the minced meat. Scroll the meat in a meat grinder, it is advisable to use a fine mesh. I recommend buying lamb on the bones. Cut the meat and make minced meat, and cook the broth on the bones, with which we will pour the dolma for cooking.
  2. Onions and greens can also be scrolled in a meat grinder or finely chopped.
  3. Rice, preferably round, boil and rinse.
  4. Finely chop the walnuts. Add finely chopped garlic, 1 teaspoon olive oil and a few drops of lemon juice. We mix.
  5. V chopped meat add rice, onion, herbs, salt, pepper, curry and walnuts with garlic. Mix until smooth.

Dolma from pickled grape leaves


  1. We spread the canned grape leaves in a pot of water (possibly in cold water). Let them lie down a little.
  2. And right in the water, you can begin to unroll the rolls. When the leaves are separated from each other, drain the first water and rinse again in clean water to wash off the excess citric acid in which the leaves are preserved. Let the water drain.
  3. Leaves must be tasted before being stuffed. If they are hard or oversalted, oversour, then you need to cook them for 5-10 minutes. and even in two waters (for those who cannot tolerate sour food).
  4. Now we stock up on patience and sit down to stuff the grape leaves. The technology is not complicated, the main thing is to adapt to the amount of minced meat that needs to be laid out on a sheet. And the rest is a matter of technology. We spread the sheet with the bottom side (more matte) up.
  5. For stuffing, we use whole leaves, and set aside substandard separately, they will come in handy.
  6. From this amount of minced meat, approximately 60-70 pieces of dolma are obtained.

Now let's start laying out:

  1. You need to take a pan with a wide bottom or a wide deep frying pan so that we get 2-3 layers no more. At the bottom we lay out a layer of leaves (substandard and leftovers).
  2. On it is a layer of dolma. Dolma in the pan should lie tightly to each other so that the leaves do not unfold during a long boil.
  3. On top again a layer of leaves, and again dolma.
  4. On the top layer of leaves are bay leaves, garlic, black peppercorns. Pour the broth flush with the top layer, no more.
  5. Be sure to cover with an inverted plate to press down the dolma.
  6. Close the lid, bring to a boil. How long to cook dolma? As soon as it boils, reduce the heat and cook dolma on a SLOW fire for 1.5 hours. This time is necessary for the dolma to become soft and juicy. Almost all of the broth will be absorbed.

Sauce for dolma:

  1. Matsoni or fatty yogurt or sour cream put in a bowl, salt a little and squeeze the garlic. Mix everything and the sauce is ready.
  2. In an hour and a half, our dolma is ready! We spread it on plates, pour over the sauce, you can sprinkle with cilantro or parsley.

BON APPETIT!

Dolma recipe


Dolma is prepared almost everywhere, but of course it is common in the east. Dolma is prepared from grape leaves. Many people think that dolma differs from the usual cabbage rolls only in leaves (cabbage cabbage rolls in cabbage rolls, and grape ones here), but this is not so. The composition of the filling, spices, and even the cooking technology also differ. Therefore, these are two completely different dishes.

If you decide to cook dolma, follow our recipe. This is a classic dolma - very tasty, fragrant and appetizing. There is nothing complicated in cooking, and in terms of duration, the process will not take so much time.

Ingredients:

  • grape leaves
  • 500 g lamb
  • 2 onions
  • parsley, dill, cilantro - to taste
  • 100 g rice
  • salt, pepper to taste
  • hot pepper, bell pepper, garlic - to taste

Preparation of dolma:

  1. Pour washed rice with hot water and leave to infuse.
  2. Peel the onion, chop the lamb and twist everything in a meat grinder.
  3. If it works out, then it’s better to chop the onion and meat very finely with a knife - that’s when the dolma will acquire a special taste. But you can also use a meat grinder.
  4. Now you need to add spices and chopped herbs to the minced meat - everything to your liking. But in a traditional dolma there should be a lot of greenery.
  5. By this time, the rice should have already been infused, drain the water from it and add to the minced meat.
  6. Now the most important and interesting thing in the whole cooking process. We take a grape leaf, put a tablespoon of minced meat on it and begin to wrap it. Should be an envelope.
  7. Now we need a cauldron, well, or a pan with a thick bottom. We spread the grape leaves on the bottom - you should not feel sorry for the leaves. We put dolma on top and again cover everything with grape leaves.
  8. Now attention! We need oppression, you can use a plate. Set it on top of the leaves.
  9. Now fill everything with water, salt and cover with a lid. Let it simmer on low heat for an hour.
  10. While the dolma is cooking, let's make the sauce. To do this, take matsoni (or kefir) and mix with finely chopped garlic. Garlic should not be much, as it can drown out the true flavor of the dolma itself.
  11. We take out the finished dolma from the cauldron and serve with sauce. Served only hot. Despite the fact that the dish is meat, it is quite light, so you need to cook more. Bon appetit!

Dolma


Sometimes dolma is also made in a vegetarian manner, i.e. meat is not used in the filling.
Dolma is widespread in the cuisines of the peoples of the former Ottoman Empire, Russian Empire, Balkan Peninsula, Central and South Asia: Azerbaijan, Albania, Algeria, Armenia, Greece, Georgia, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Northern Sudan, Turkey, Uzbekistan.

The word dolma can literally be translated as “fill”, “minced meat stuffed with grape leaves”, “stuffed cabbage”. Minced meat can include all kinds of additives: lemon juice, nuts, olive oil.

Dolma is served either with sour cream sauce, or with a sauce based on the broth in which the dolma was cooked. The sauce should be either sour or sweet and sour. In Azerbaijan, grape leaves are sometimes replaced with quince or fig leaves. Dolma is also made from fish, not meat. There are more than 10 types of dolma in Azerbaijan.

For the preparation of this dish, the youngest and most tender leaves are taken. But in Turkey, there are 2 main types of dolma. The first is with meat filling, which is served only hot. And the second - with rice, can be served cold as an appetizer.

DOLMA


Ingredients and the process of preparing a delicious second course - Armenian dolma from grape leaves:

  • 350 g grape leaves for dolma
  • 600 g beef (or lamb)
  • 100 g pork (or tail fat if the main meat is lamb)
  • 80 g onion
  • 80 g greens (mint, cilantro, dill)
  • 150 g round grain rice
  • salt, pepper, garlic to taste
  • 300 g yogurt (or thick curdled milk, or thin sour cream)
  1. Rinse rice and pour boiling water for 40 minutes.
  2. Meat, onions, greens (dill, cilantro, mint) twist in a meat grinder.
  3. Add chilled rice, salt and pepper to taste. Mix well.
  4. On the wrong side of a young fresh grape leaf without a cutting (you can also use salted grape leaves bought on the market, which must first be thoroughly washed and soaked for 1-2 hours in order to remove excess salt). cold water) put cooked minced meat in an amount of about 20-25 grams.
  5. Fold the sheet with the filling into an envelope.
  6. To stew dolma, choose a saucepan with a thick bottom. Put a layer of grape leaves on the bottom of this pan. Lay dolma tightly in rows on them, then cover the dolma on top with a flat plate of the appropriate size so that the dolma does not turn around and float during cooking.
  7. Pour in water, and preferably ready-made broth.
  8. Simmer for an hour with the lid closed over low heat.
    Serve with the juice obtained from the stew.
  9. Separately, serve matsoni (or sour cream) with garlic passed through a grater.

Although dolma is a meat dish, it is a very light dish! Sour-milk sauce, on the other hand, promotes proper digestion, as a result of which food is quite easily digested.

Dolma is a dish close to. It also consists of a filling and a leaf shell. But there is still a difference. In dolma, fruit and berry leaves and even fruits with pulp removed are most often used as a shell. The meat component here is minced lamb.

Today let's talk about how to cook dolma from fresh grape leaves. This combination is considered the most successful: grape leaves give sourness and some astringency, and meat - satiety.

Dolma recipe with grape leaves in a slow cooker

Ingredients:

  • grape leaves - 30-40 pieces;
  • minced meat (mutton, beef, you can also take turkey) - 300 g;
  • basmati rice - 100 g;
  • onion - 1 head;
  • tomatoes - 1 pc.;
  • goat cheese - 100-120 g;
  • lemon - 0.5 pcs.;
  • salt;
  • ground pepper (white or red) - 1 pinch;
  • cilantro greens - 4-5 branches;
  • sour cream - 5 tbsp. spoons.;
  • water - ¾ cup.

Cooking

My rice, put in boiling water and cook, and then filter and cool. We clean and chop the onion, achieving maximum grinding. Cut the tomato into cubes - 3-5 mm just right. Wash the cilantro and chop it too. We send onion, tomato, cilantro and finely crumbled goat cheese to minced meat. Salt and pepper.

Grape leaves are sent for 3 minutes in boiling water. Cut off their tails. Lay the leaves on a cutting board with the veins facing up. In the middle of each leaf we place the filling in the form of a thin rectangle. We wrap the leaves into rolls. You can lightly roll them with your palm on the board to improve the shape.

We put the dolma in the container of the multicooker. If all the rolls do not fit in one layer, then we put them in the second, but do not forget to distribute thin slices of lemon between the layers. We mix water and sour cream - fill the dolma with this mixture. We also distribute lemon on top. We send it to the multicooker on the "Extinguishing" mode. 1.5 hours - and dolma is ready.

Recipe for real dolma from grape leaves

Ingredients:

  • grape leaves - 30-35 pieces;
  • lamb pulp - 500 g;
  • onion - 1 pc.;
  • parsley or cilantro - 5-7 sprigs;
  • boiled rice - 150 g;
  • - 1 glass;
  • salt, spices (marjoram, oregano) - to taste.

Cooking

We send the lamb pulp to the meat grinder. After grinding, put in the meat rice, finely chopped onion, salt, oregano, marjoram. Remove the stems from the greens and finely chop the leaves. Mix in minced meat. We cut off thick tips and veins from grape leaves. We put a teaspoon of minced meat on each sheet. We wrap the minced meat in leaves, bending the edges so that tiny cabbage rolls are obtained. We put them tightly in a frying pan or saucepan, pour in the broth and let it go. After 40 minutes, serve on the table, adding garlic, matsoni or sour cream.

Dolma with lamb - recipe

Ingredients:

Cooking

Wash the meat, cut into medium pieces and pass through a meat grinder. Wash greens and vegetables. We clean the onion, cut it finely and put it to the minced meat. We tear off the leaves of mint, basil, dill, finely chop and also put to the meat. Mint and basil will give the filling a "zest". Pepper and salt these ingredients and mix. Mince is ready.

Cook rice, cool and mix with minced lamb. We wash the grape leaves, remove the tips so that they do not get caught in the dolma, and do not interfere with wrapping the leaves. We put minced meat in the middle and form dolma - we wrap it in the form of tubes or cabbage rolls. We put the dolma in a saucepan. Pour a little boiling water and simmer for 30-35 minutes over low heat.

In Russian cuisine, such a dish as cabbage rolls is widely known. It is minced meat wrapped in cabbage leaves. However, many housewives cook and lean cabbage rolls with mushrooms or vegetables inside. But in Caucasian cuisine, the stuffing based on boiled rice is wrapped in grape leaves - fresh or pickled. This dish is called dolma. Wrapped in small cabbage rolls, they are traditionally boiled in meat broth and served with sour cream sauce. Each kitchen has its own secrets of preparing this dish. We will tell you how to cook dolma in our article. We will offer several interesting recipes to choose from, including for the oven and multicooker.

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

First, they should be collected only in the spring. Old grape leaves are only good 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 spoil the taste of the dish.

Pickling leaves for dolma

Traditionally, salted (pickled) grape leaves are used to prepare this dish. But this does not mean that you can go to any shrub and pick them plenty. For dolma, only white grape leaves are suitable. They should be young, relatively clean, with a glossy surface and no coarse veins.

Leaves are carried out in the following sequence:

  1. Leaves plucked from a shrub of a suitable variety (60 pieces) are soaked in a bowl of cold water for about 1 hour.
  2. Boiling water for blanching is prepared on the stove in a large saucepan.
  3. After the time has elapsed, the soaked leaves are dipped in 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 towards the center. After that, the stack is rolled up and folded into a clean jar of a suitable size.
  5. The rest of the leaves are prepared in the same way. They all go to the bank.
  6. Spices are poured on top: dry mustard and salt (1 tsp each), a pinch of ground black pepper. Stacks of leaves are poured with boiling water.
  7. The jar is closed with a nylon lid and sent to a cold place to infuse for three months.
  8. After this time, you can start cooking real dolma from pickled grape leaves.

Preparing the filling for the dish

It is no coincidence that in the Caucasus, rice-based minced meat is wrapped in grape leaves, and not in 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 marinate them in order to enjoy the pleasant taste of this oriental dish in winter.

For classic dolma, you will need 50 pieces of pickled grape leaves and 500 ml of meat broth. They need to be prepared in advance. Next, 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. Clean rice is poured with boiling water and set aside for a few minutes. During this time, he should steam well. Or you can cook rice on the stove until half cooked.
  3. Onion (2 pcs.) is fried in a pan with vegetable oil. As soon as it becomes transparent, steamed rice is added to it. Together with onions, it cooks for a few more minutes.
  4. In a separate bowl, 500 g of minced meat (lamb with 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 begin to form "stuffed cabbage".

Dolma cooking technology at home

As mentioned above, young grape leaves collected in spring should be used for this dish. They are preserved for a year in advance, and if necessary, used to make dolma.

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

Now you can start forming the "stuffed cabbage":

  1. Arrange the leaves smooth side down and veins up.
  2. Put the stuffing towards the middle.
  3. Bend inward the bottom of the sheet, and then the sides.
  4. Roll up the sheet.
  5. Prepare the rest of the dolma in the same way. From the above amount of minced meat, 50-60 pieces of products should be obtained.

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

Dolma is cooked on low heat for about 1.5 hours. 20 minutes after the end of cooking, the dish can be served at the table.

Unlike traditional cabbage rolls, this oriental dish is not stewed in sauce, but in meat broth or water. And this is quite enough to make the dolma juicy and tasty. But the finished dish is served already with 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. Finely chopped dill.
  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 of the dolma. Add salt and black pepper if desired.

Dolma in tomato sauce (from fresh leaves)

The next option for preparing a popular Caucasian dish is to perform the following procedure:

  1. Fresh grape leaves (60-70 pieces) are poured with boiling water for 10 minutes. After that, they need to be pulled out of the water and cooled.
  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, after which the water is drained, and the swollen cereal is added to the minced meat (600 g).
  3. Finely chopped 1 onion, a bunch of parsley and cilantro.
  4. combined with chopped onions and herbs. Salt and black pepper are added to taste.
  5. A spoonful of filling is laid out on the wide part of the grape leaf, after which it is wrapped, like a traditional cabbage roll.
  6. Formed products are laid out in a saucepan and poured with sauce. For its preparation vegetable oil 2 onions are fried, 6-7 chopped tomatoes, salt and pepper are added. As soon as the tomatoes start up the juice, 200 ml of broth is poured. Immediately add suneli hops (2 tablespoons) 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 she stewed.

Dolma recipe in a slow cooker

A kitchen helper makes life easier for housewives in the kitchen. It is 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 browned onion, washed raw rice (3 tablespoons), salt, finely chopped herbs and a piece of butter(40 g).
  2. Put the filling on fresh or salted leaves. Wrap the products like traditional cabbage rolls and send them to the multicooker bowl. Distribute dolma in a slow cooker in layers, and between each of them do not forget to put slices of lemon.
  3. Fill the dish with water so that it barely covers the products.
  4. Set the cooking mode "Extinguishing" for 90 minutes. After the specified time, the dish will be ready.

Below we offer a recipe for cooking an oriental dish 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 pre-sautéed in vegetable oil until golden brown. As soon as the vegetable roast has cooled down, it is combined with the rice-meat mass.
  3. Salt, pepper, herbs, suneli hops are added to the filling to taste.
  4. Prepared minced meat is laid out in the middle of a blanched with boiling water or salted leaf and wrapped in a roll. All products are formed in the same way.
  5. Dolma is laid out in a baking dish and poured with water. From above, the dishes are covered with a lid or tightened with foil.
  6. In the oven at a temperature of 170 degrees, cook dolma, as well as on the stove, for 1 hour. The finished dish is served with sauce.

Lenten dolma

The following dish will help diversify the diet in fasting. In the filling for dolma home recipe Includes only rice, herbs and spices. But this dish is no less satisfying and tasty.

To prepare the filling in a pan, sauté onions (2 pcs.) 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 tablespoons) and add salt. Next, the rice will be cooked in a frying pan under the lid until all the liquid is absorbed. Add to the cooled mass green onion, dill, a few mint leaves and parsley. The finished filling is wrapped in leaves.

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

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