Having four seasons, Iran’s nature makes it possible to have access to different food materials all year round to make diverse and delicious foods. By making use of the available ingredients a variety of cuisines are cooked in different parts of this country. Dolma or dolmeh is a delicious Iranian dish in which grape leaves are used as one of its ingredients!

Dolma; A Popular Iranian Cuisine

Dolma is a traditional Iranian dish, which is quite popular in all regions of the country, and despite the slight differences in its recipe, the ingredients and the way it is served are similar.

Due to the fact that grape leaves are used in dolma, this dish is usually cooked in summer. Here you can learn how to cook sour dolma, which is more popular than other types of dolma.

Ingredients

• Grape leaves: 500 grams (medium size)

• Minced meat: two cups

• Onion: 2 large (or 3 medium) ones

• Cotyledons (split peas): 2.5 to 3 cups

• Aromatic vegetables: 2 to 2.5 cups

• Sour condensed yogurt: 4 to 5 tablespoons

• Barberry: one cup

• Oil, salt, pepper, and turmeric powder as per taste.

Usually, a mixture of dried chives and tarragon, parsley, dill, coriander, and dried mint is used as the raw ingredients of the composition of aromatic vegetables.

Cut the onions bigger so that the food will taste better. If the onions are medium in size, chop three instead of two.

Recipe

Like most Iranian dishes, cooking dolma requires patience and a lot of preparation. However, after the meal, you will come to the conclusion that cooking the dolma was worth the amount of care and time!

• Wash the grape leaves.

• Pour water into a pot up to two-thirds of its capacity and place it on the heat until it boils. Then slowly put the leaves in the boiling water. After three minutes, remove the leaves and put them in a strainer.

• Wash the rice with warm water and keep it aside.

• Fill a pot with water and put it on the flame. After the water boils, add the rice and let it boil until the texture of the rice becomes soft and edible. At this stage, you can add a teaspoon of turmeric powder to the water to color the rice.

• Meanwhile, prepare the necessary mixture for making your dolma. For this, pour a little oil into a pan and slightly heat it.

• Fry two-thirds of the chopped onion, add the minced meat and a little turmeric to it, and increase the flame a little to fry the meat.

• After the mixture is ready, remove the pan from the flame, add aromatic vegetables, rice, semi-cooked cotyledons, yogurt, and spices to it, and stir well.

• The next step is to place the mixture on grape leaves and wrap them. To do this, pour a tablespoon of oil into a pan and cover the bottom with some grape leaves. In order to pour the ingredients onto the leaves, take one of them, put a tablespoon of the ingredients in the middle, and fold the leaf from the corners to fully cover the mixture placed on it.

• After wrapping is complete, place the pieces made in a pot in such a way that the corners meet, so that they do not come apart.

• Add two cups of water and three tablespoons of oil, put it on the stove, and wait until the dolmas are cooked (about two hours). At this stage, you can use a mixture of pomegranate paste and water instead of water. However, if you want to use pomegranate paste, you must not add yogurt to the ingredients.

One of the tricks used to prevent the dolmas from falling apart at this stage is to place a heavy plate on them. This will also help to make the ingredients more dense.

How Is Dolma Served?

To decorate the food, heat some vegetable oil in another pan and fry the rest of the chopped onions with barberry. After the dolmas are ready, put them in a serving dish and pour the fried onion and barberry around it.

Dolma is usually eaten both as a hot dish and as a cold dish. Because Dolma is a type of food in small sizes (finger food), there is no need for spoons and forks to serve it, but some people like to cut it and eat it in smaller pieces. It is also served with salad, pickles, or yogurt.

Dolma is a traditional Iranian dish, which is quite popular in all regions of the country, and despite the slight differences in its recipe, the ingredients and the way it is served are similar.