Dolma is present in almost every national cuisine of the Turkic peoples, and every nation prepares it in its own way. Dolma in Azerbaijani has many features that distinguish it from similar dishes from other national cuisines. Moreover, under this name there are several types of dishes that are prepared according to completely different recipes. This is due to the fact that from the Azerbaijani language "dolma" is translated as "filled, stuffed," and you can fill not only vine leaves, but also vegetables. Of course, the technology of cooking such different dishes can not be the same, but nevertheless it has common features that do not depend on the recipe.
Cooking Features
Whatever recipe Azerbaijani dolma prepares, it is necessary to follow some general rules. In this case, the dolma will turn out to be tender, tasty and fragrant.
- For Azeri dolma it is customary to use fat lamb. It is permissible to replace it with beef, but in this case, it is necessary to add fat in the minced meat or butter.
- To make minced meat tender, Azerbaijanis add some boiled water or vegetable juice or mashed potatoes, such as tomato, as well as slices of vegetables.
- Coarse-grained rice is usually added to minced meat. There should not be much of it in Azerbaijani dolma, enough cups of rice cereal per 1 kg of meat. Rice before adding to the meat is boiled until half cooked. Otherwise, it will remain firm, which will negatively affect the taste of the finished dish.
- Azerbaijanis must add mint to the mince, most often fresh. However, you can only use mint leaves, but not its stems.
- Many housewives before cooking dolma in vine leaves scald these leaves with boiling water so that they become softer - it is easier to wrap the stuffing in them. Azerbaijanis do not do this - they prefer to preserve the aroma of vine leaves, so they only wash them with cool water and remove the rough petioles.
- For Azerbaijani dolma, you can use not only fresh, but also canned grape leaves. In this case, they must be washed very well so that they do not remain over-salted.
Otherwise, the cooking technology will depend on the specific recipe, which, as already mentioned, differ significantly from each other.
Azerbaijani dolma in grape leaves
Composition:
- lamb - 1 kg;
- fat tail - 100 g;
- onions - 0, 2 kg;
- cilantro - 50 g;
- dill - 50 g;
- mint - 20 g;
- rice - 150 g;
- grape leaves - how many leaves;
- turmeric, black pepper, salt - to taste.
Method of preparation:
- Wash the lamb, dry it with a kitchen towel. Cut them into medium-sized pieces and roll them along with the peeled onions and fat in a meat grinder.
- Finely chop the fresh greens with a knife and put in the stuffing, mix it.
- Pickle minced meat, add spices to it, stir.
- Wash rice and boil until half cooked, combine with minced meat. If the stuffing turned out too dense, pour into it a couple of tablespoons of boiled water and mix.
- Wash grape leaves, shake them off to get rid of excess water.
- Place a spoonful of minced meat on a grape leaf and form a round or almost round envelope.
- Fold the grape leaves stuffed with minced meat into a thick-walled pot.
- At the bottom of the pot, pour in some water so that it reaches around the middle of the upper layer of the dolma.
- Put a heavy plate on top, cover the pan with a lid.
- Put the pot of dolma on low heat and simmer the dolma for an hour.
Serve dolma in Azerbaijani style with a sauce of yoghurt and garlic. A glass of sour milk drink requires 2-3 garlic cloves, passed through a special press. If you do not have matsoni, you can use unsweetened yogurt as a basis.
Azerbaijani Dolma from vegetables
Composition:
- young eggplants - 0, 8 kg;
- sweet pepper - 0, 8 kg;
- tomatoes - 0, 6 kg;
- lamb - 0, 5 kg;
- rice cereal - 80 g;
- onions - 100 g;
- fresh mint - 30 g;
- salt, ground pepper - to taste.
Method of preparation:
- Wash the lamb, dry it, scroll through a meat grinder. If you decide to use beef instead or ready-made ground beef, add 50-100 g of butter and mix.
- Tear off the mint leaves and finely chop them with a knife, combine with minced meat.
- Season and season with minced meat, stir.
- Rice sort out, rinse, cover with water and boil until half cooked.
- Put the rice in a bowl of minced meat, mix it well.
- Remove the husks from the bulb. Crush the onions in a grater or blender. You can use and a meat grinder.
- Put the onion with the onion juice in the minced meat.
- Wash the tomatoes. Cut off the top. Cut the pulp and mash it with a fork, and even better wipe it through a sieve. Add to mincemeat. Mix it well.
- Cut the eggplants in the middle along. Put in a pot of boiling salted water and cook for 10 minutes. Remove, wash and dry with paper towels. Thanks to this manipulation, it will be possible to remove corned beef from the eggplants, which gives them bitterness and also makes them softer. Otherwise, eggplants will not have time to cook with other vegetables.
- Wash peppers. Notch them from above, almost completely cutting off the upper part, where the stem is located. Remove seeds from peppers.
- Stuff the tomatoes and peppers with a meat filling. Lay the remaining stuffing on the eggplants (just thickly grease them and put together the halves).
- Fold the vegetables tightly together in a deep frying pan or saucepan. Cover the peppers and tomatoes with “hats”. Pour in a glass of water. Simmer for 40 minutes, adding water if necessary.
Serve dolma from vegetables with the same sauce as dolma in grape leaves.
Dolma in Azerbaijani style with beef
Composition:
- ground beef - 0, 4 kg;
- fat tail or butter - 100 g;
- onions - 150 g;
- garlic - 1 clove;
- vegetable oil - 50 ml;
- pine nuts - 50 g;
- rice cereal - 60 g;
- dried dill - 10 g;
- dried mint - 10 g;
- lemon - 1 pc .;
- beef broth - 0, 5 l;
- canned or fresh grape leaves - 0, 35-0, 4 kg;
- salt, pepper - to taste;
- ground cinnamon - a pinch.
Method of preparation:
- Peel the onion and cut it into small cubes.
- Boil rice until half cooked.
- Fat wheel through meat grinder.
- Mix the minced meat with rice, pine nuts, chopped onion and garlic passed through a press.
- Squeeze lemon juice into the mince and add grated zest to it, add salt, dried herbs and spices, knead well.
- Rinse the grape leaves. Put them in a colander and wait for the water to drain.
- Wrap the mince in grape leaves.
- At the bottom of the pan, lay the leaves of the vine, put the dolma on them.
- Pour in broth.
- Cover the pot with a small lid. Stew dolma for an hour.
To this dolma sauce is also best served traditional, that is, from a fermented milk product with chopped garlic.
Dolma in Azerbaijani is a few completely different tastes. It is worth trying each of their variants of this traditional dish, as they are unique.
