Wonder Dolma

Ever since an Iraqi woman told me she uses in-season greens like kale, chard, and cabbage to make dolmas, I have been on cooking cloud nine. My friends adore this dish. Even my kids adore this dish. Even my kids' friends! It's a bird, it's a plane, its Wonder Dolma and she's here to help parents get their kids to eat vegetables. Click at right for the full story, how-to photos, and two favorite recipes.

Photo: Margo Roy

The Story

What to Eat After Trampoline-ing

By Lindsay Sterling

Dear growers of cabbage, chard, and kale; winter CSA subscribers; healthy eaters; gluten-free-ers; parents who pack lunches; potluckers; vegetarians, meat eaters; locavores; who-cares-avores; carnivores, omnivores with dilemmas; omnivores without dilemmas; people who eat while driving; triathletes who eat while biking; couch potatoes, and anyone else I have not called out who is human and eats… I have an amazing finger food for you. Dolmas are incredibly delicious edible packets of spiced rice and/or meat that are packable, portable, and extremely healthy. They’re so good, they must be bad for you, but they’re not. The aspect of this food I find absolutely unbelievable, astonishing, really, is that it gets kids to eat kale.

I brought a platter of dolmas to a party recently. On my Iraqi friend’s suggestion, I’d wrapped them in local kale, chard, and cabbage instead of grape leaves. A pack of kids dismounted the trampoline, ran to the buffet table, offered quizzical looks and some shrugs, and then devoured the dolmas like they were cupcakes. I would not be surprised if in 20 years kale dolmas finally redeemed McDonalds from the entire twentieth century health debacle. They would come in a hot little collection like nuggets, with a yogurt dipping sauce -- their first ever sauce with no sugar in it!

What you know of dolmas from the store, tangy cold little green cylinders stuffed in a deli container, is about 1/1000^th of their potential. I’m not exaggerating. The best kind are home-cooked, steaming hot, and served on a platter or big board for family and friends. Grape leaf wrappers are great, but large local edible leaves are phenomneal! So this is what to do with all that winter CSA chard, kale, and cabbage! The fillings are different for every family. One Iraqi friend fills hers with ground beef, rice, cinnamon, nutmeg, paprika, coriander, black lemon, cumin, garlic, onion, and tomato paste. Another Iraqi friend uses Madras curry powder, lemon pepper, turmeric, tomato paste and salt. My daughter’s favorite is the clean, bright, vegetarian version that my Lebanese friend told me about: rice, dried mint, dried dill, and salt. In addition to being wrapped with leaves, dolmas can also be made by stuffing de-cored vessel-like vegetables or fruits like bell peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants. All these varieties are cooked the same way: submerged in water with lots of lemon juice and salt, which is the key to the tangy flavor that everybody loves.

The name dolma comes from a Turkish verb meaning ‘to stuff’ and it makes sense that that Turkish word would stick even though dolmas are native foods to something like 20 different countries. Indeed, I think the Turks, the people of the Ottoman Empire, were responsible for spreading the food far and wide during the 600 years they ruled from the Mediterranean Sea, down to North Africa, and through the Balkans to Asia and Russia. This was about the time Christopher Columbus was setting sail. But who was the Nobel-deserving genius who figured out how to make vegetables taste good? I’m guessing a humble home cook living around 1000 BC in what is modern day Iran. If it wasn’t her, it was someone else. Dolmas are kale’s destiny. And because twenty years is just too long to wait for you to get them in the drive-thru, you should cook a pot of them this weekend.

Fine print. I shall be paid a million dollars if McDonalds suddenly decides to put dolmas on the menu. Also, I created the word first: “McDolmas.” Doesn't it sound like it was meant to be?

Copyright Lindsay Sterling October 17, 2011

See How to Do It

Wonder Dolmas

The cabbage, kale and chard leaves will crack and break if you try to roll them raw. So get ready for the most unexpected trick ever. Stick the whole cabbage in the freezer the night before. Then thaw the cabbage leaves next to something warm (I stuck the whole cabbage in a steamer basket over hot water) and they're perfectly malleable.

As for the kale and chard leaves - you simply trim most of the hard/big part of the stem out of each, and then drop batches of the trimmed leaves into boiling water for fifteen seconds or so. When they're bright green but droopy, pull them out with tongs and and put onto a platter to cool and let the water run off.

You can make meat filling (with any kind of ground meat, rice and spices) or you can make veggie filling with rice and spices. Here's one filling: rice, dill, mint, and salt.

Cool trick with the mint - rub it between your hands to unleash full mojo.

Here's a meat filling.

This one is a mixture of ground beef, rice, and all these spices...

Now we're ready to roll!

Lay the blanched leaves out on the counter. Dot each with a teaspoon of filling. This part is great for kids and parents to do together. Something I've learned about kids and food. Cooking It = Liking It.

You basically make little burrito shapes with the rice filling and leaf wrappers. Here's a step by step from my Iraqi cooking lesson. She's using grape leaves here:

Put generous oil in the bottom of your pot. Then place slices of potatoes or carrot planks on the bottom. You're basically sacrificing these veggies... they're there on the bottom so your dolmas won't stick or burn. If these potatoes or carrots don't burn, they turn out to be a decicious addition to the dolma platter.

If you want a nice colorful centerpiece for your dolma display, stuff a bell pepper with a flat bottom or a tomato and place it in the middle. Then you pack the dolmas in shoulder to shoulder around it so they stay nice and tightly wrapped and don't open up in the boiling cooking liquid. Make the bottom layer one pattern, and then make the next layer an opposite pattern so they interlock and are sturdy. I think it looks nice when you make one layer kale, the next chard, and the next cabbage.

Try to make the top layer even so the plate you put over them is level and the weight you put on top of the plate won't roll off to the side.

I liked her weight - just a jar of water (no lid on the jar or you'll have an explosion!) The goal is to keep the dolmas packed in the cooking liquid without letting them knock around when it boils. Fill the pot with cooking tangy, salty cooking liquid made of water, lemon juice and salt. You do not want bland dolmas, so make sure you put enough salt and lemon in. The little bundles can handle it! Tomato paste mixed in tastes delicious particularly with the meat varieties. Get the liquid simmering, and cook until the rice and meat inside the dolmas is cooked and all but the last bit of water disappears. (If every ounce of water disappears, they'll burn, so don't let the pot go completely dry.)

Then there you have it! A gorgous pot of delicious, healthy finger food! Turn pot over directly onto serving platter or board. They'll tumble out in a loose version of your beautiful pattern, and get gobbled up with glee.

Copyright Lindsay Sterling October 2011.

Photo credits: Margo Roy and Lindsay Sterling

An Iraqi Family Meal

Cool. You can wrap dolmas with grape leaves, onion skins, and swiss chard. Get the full story, recipes and photos at the links to the right.

photo: Tiffany Converse Photography

Print the Recipes

An Iraqi Family Menu

Serves 12-15

total cooking time: 4 hours

Red Lentil Soup

Iraqi Dolmas

Fattoush salad

Eggplant in red sauce

As a woman from Baghdad, Iraq, taught Lindsay Sterling in Portland, Maine, October 2011.

Dolmas

Active time: 2 hours

Total time: 4 hours

1 16 oz jar of grape leaves

and/or: fresh chard leaves, de-stemmed and dipped in boiling water

red onion skins, boiled for 5 minutes

white onion skins, boiled for 5 minutes

2 lbs beef or lamb minced

1 cup uncooked Basmati rice

¾ cup tomato sauce

2 Tbsp tomato paste

1 medium onion, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

3 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

1 tsp dried lemon (available in middle-eastern markets)

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp paprika

½ tsp cloves

½ tsp nutmeg

½ tsp coriander

½ tsp cinnamon

½ cup fresh squeezed lemon juice

2/3 cup Canola oil

4-5 carrots, peeled

water

Drain grape leaves. Rinse in fresh water. Boil for 10 minutes in water to soften. Peel and slice carrots into planks and line bottom of the pot (prevents dolmas from sticking). Soak rice in hot water for ten minutes and drain. In a large bowl, combine rice, beef, onion, garlic, tomato sauce, tomato paste, and all spices. Place each grape leaf vein-side up so that smooth side is on the outside of each roll. Cut off any stem. Place 1 Tbsp of the mixture on leaf near the stem end. Roll top over once, fold ends in, and continue to roll away from you. Repeat with remaining leaves. Arrange rolled grape leaves in a pot, seam side down, tightly packed. Place each layer in opposite direction of previous layer, in a criss-cross fashion. For even cooking, try to have no more than 4 layers. Combine lemon juice and oil and pour over grape leaves. Top with water until approximately 1” below top layer. Place large plate on top, and a heavy weight on plate (a foil-wrapped brick works great). Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer for 1 hour and 15 minutes until rice is thoroughly cooked. Allow to rest for 20-30 minutes. To remove from pan, get serving platter out, drain off any remaining liquid if any, remove plate from pot, and turn over pot onto platter in one fluid motion so the packed dolmas sit like an overturned cake on the platter.

Red Lentil Soup

Active time: 1 ½ hrs

14 oz red lentils

10 cups water

1 whole onion, de-skinned

1 or 2 carrots, peeled

1 stalk celery, chopped

1 potato, peeled

juice form ½ lemon

(or citric acid)

½ cup chopped cilantro

1 Tbsp salt

4 cloves garlic

2 tsp cumin

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp turmeric

Rinse lentils and soak in water. Make a quick vegetable broth by bringing to a boil and simmering for 30 minutes: 10 cups water, celery, carrot, whole onion and potato (you don’t even have to chop these if you have a blender to finish the soup) and salt. After 30 minutes is up, drain lentils and add to soup. Bring to a boil and reduce heat and cover, cooking until lentils lose their definition about 40 minutes. While you wait, in a small frying pan, saute garlic in a little olive oil with cumin, paprika and turmeric, stirring constantly until cooked by not browning. Remove from heat. Once lentils are cooked, add spice mixture, lemon juice, cilantro. Puree with hand blender, leaving some texture. Taste soup and add salt, hot pepper, and citric acid (called lemon salt or LEYmone DUZie in middle-eastern markets, all to taste.

Eggplant in tomato sauce

Tepsi Baytinijan

2 large eggplants

2 large tomatoes

1 large onion

6 cloves garlic

¾ lb ground beef

2 medium potatoes

3 tablespoons tomato paste

pepper

salt

corn oil

1. Peel eggplant in wide stripes and cut off stem. Slice eggplant in circular pieces (not lengthwise) about 1 inch thick, and put it in salty water.

2. Peel and slice the potatoes in 1 inch thick round slices, set aside. Slice the onions same way. Peel the garlic and crush it useing one o those little garlic contraptions. Slice the tomatoes.

3. Heat about ½ cup oil in a non-stick pan. Take eggplant slices out of water, drain on paper towel, then fry until each piece is light golden. In the same oil lightly fry th epotoate. They don’t have to cook all the way. Set aside. In the same pan, fry the onion and set aside. Drain the fried pieces on some paper towels.

4. Mix the ground beef, half the crushed garlic, salt and pepper to taste. Make small meatballs and fry them. Set aside.

5. Mix about 2 ½ cups of water with 3 tablespoons of tomato paste, the remainder of the crushed garlic, salt (about 3 teastpoons), and pepper (preferably white pepper) and set aside.

6. Inside the cake pan/baking dish, arrange the eggplant pieces all touching each other and layered if necessary. On top of th eeggplant, arrange the potato slices, then the onion, then the slices of tomato on top (these aren’t fried). Arrange the meatballs in between the tomato slices. Pour the tomato paste mixture on top of all this.

7. Cook this “tepsi” on stovetop for 40 minutes on medium, covering the top with a lid or steel tray and allowing it to simmer and bubble until tomato sauce thickens, or stick in the oven for about an hour – careful to not let it dry or burn.

8. Serve with Basmati or ‘Ammbar’ rice.

Fattoush Salad

Cooking time: 15 min

2 cups romaine lettuce, torn

2 tomato

2 small cucumbers, peeled

1 green pepper, or combo of green, orange, and yellow

3 green onions, minced

15 mint leaves chopped roughly

¼ cup parsley chopped roughly

1-2 cups pita bread, toasted until crispy and broken in pieces

Classic Lemon Vinaigrette:

¼ cup lemon juice

¼ cup olive oil

salt to taste

1-2 Tbsp sumac

pinch Aleppo pepper

Cut vegetables into bite size pieces and put into large bowl. Toast or dry pita in oven. Prepare dressing and toss all together. Decorate edge of serving plate with lettuce leaves and lemon slices.

Recipes courtesy of the Iraqi woman and Catholic Charities Maine Refugee & Immigration Services. Thank you!

Where to get spices

Lemon salt (Citric Acid), sumac, grape leaves, dried lemon, red lentils, and if you're lucky aleppo and great handmade Iraqi bread to go with the soup can be found

In Maine: Ahram Halal Grocery 630 Forest Ave., Portland, ME 04103 207-772-9464.

In MA: Sevans, 599 Mt. Auburn St. Watertown, MA, 617-924-3243

Arax Market, 585 Mt. Auburn St., Watertown, MA, 617-924-3399

copyright Lindsay Sterling 2010

See How to Do It

An Iraqi Family Meal

Thank you Tiffany Converse Photography

The Story

Sumac and Citric Acid

Cooking classes taught by refugees give the real scoop.

By Lindsay Sterling

The kitchen of St. Pius X Church at the north corner of Payson Park (429 Ocean Ave., Portland, ME) was particularly steamy on the unusually hot night of October 1st. Forty people were inaugurating a new international cooking class series taught by refugees, a project of the Catholic Charities Maine Refugee & Immigration Services. The head cook was a woman from Iraq. She’d been an architect there, working for the U.S. government in reconfiguring Saddam Hussein’s palaces for new uses, but had to flee because her colleagues and their families were being kidnapped and killed. She’d lost one baby. She had two children left. She’d barely survived losing blood for 7 hours after an explosion. It was time to leave.

The steam erupting out of large silver pots and the general hustle required in feeding forty with culinary commentary (in a second language!) had her repositioning her scarf again and again behind her shoulders. It’s hard to say, with four wonderful dishes and all the secrets behind them revealed to me throughout the night, what my favorite part was, but I think it’s that there was a Muslim woman in a Catholic church teaching a cooking lesson, and no one had any bones about it. The next day, I mentioned this to the cook and she said, “Since we are believing in the same thing, many kindness in charities and helping people, I don’t feel there is much difference: Christian, Muslim. The main thing is teaching people to help other people, each one support another people.”

In the kitchen ten students were helping her by dicing tomatoes, picking the leaves off parsley stems, and cutting bell peppers into chunks. “Like this?” one man asked pointing his pile of fresh mint leaves. They were preparing fattoush, a fresh, crunchy, incredibly colorful salad, which would also include romaine lettuce, shredded carrot, chunks of cucumber, green onion, toasted crunchy pita, a dressing of equal parts lemon juice and olive oil, and a special spice called sumac.

When the red lentil soup was being served, I sat next to a young girl from Iraq. She had black hair, dark eyes, and lashes that beauty magazines advertise. Just 9 years old, she’d been the assistant cook, helping to roll 120 dolmas. She’d used grape leaves as wrappers, but also boiled red and yellow onion skins, and chard leaves de-stemmed and dipped in hot water. As the head cook called for spices in Arabic, the young girl presented them to the audience to smell and see up close. Sumac smells like classic BBQ sauce, and adds tang, in dried spice form, that’s about half the power of cranberry. Citric acid looks like bright white course salt. It was responsible for the subtle tang in the soup.

What did the Iraqi girl miss most about Iraq? “Family,” she answered. She left behind aunts and uncles and a whole bunch of cousins who she might never see again. She missed her bigger house and flower garden of irises and roses. But she didn’t miss having to find her way home on foot after her school bus stopped behind a bomb explosion or being startled in the middle of the night by gunshots and hiding in her mother’s room. I asked her what the most amazing thing here was. “In Iraq,” she answered, “there is fighting. The breeze comes with dust. Here, the breeze is clean.”

The next cooking class, Nov. 5, 5:30-7:30pm, features a Rwandan cook. To sign up call Mary Gordon at 797-7026 ext. 211.

copyright Lindsay Sterling 2010