Saturday, March 28, 2009
Many of you have probably eaten dolma before, but Kurdish dolma are something special, indeed. Wikipedia informs us that "Dolma is a family of stuffed vegetable dishes in the cuisines of the former Ottoman Empire and surrounding regions, including Turkey, Libya, Egypt, Albania, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, the Balkans, Greece, Cyprus, Iraq, Iran, Northern Sudan, Central and South Asia."Although I generally consider wikipedia.org to be a great source of information, I find its entry on dolma to be sadly lacking in that it fails altogether (until my recent addition) to mention the contributions of Kurds to this delight of Middle Eastern cooking. You can refer to this entry for good general information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolma.
Yesterday I dined at the center of dolma heaven: the home of D's mother. Kurdish dolma include stuffed grape leaves, yes, but the stuffed grape leaves are just the beginning--there are also stuffed tomatoes, onions, cabbage leaves, eggplant, squash and zucchini. The stuffing generally includes rice, bits of ground meat and a variety of spices. Bits of chicken (or beef) often dot this great mound of delicious food. Dolma are usually eaten warm, but they are still delightful at room temperature as leftovers. On the side there is often a cucumber & yogurt "raita"...
Dolma heaven, indeed--
