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Lentil Sarmas
1/2 cup parboiled lentils 1/2 cup rice 1/2 cup chopped ham 1/2 cup chopped veal 1 teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon pepper 1/8 teaspoon powdered coriander seed. 12 grape leaves 2 egg yolks 1 tablespoon tarragon vinegar Mix first seven ingredients; scald the grape leaves; form the meat mixture into rolls and roll in the wilted leaves, tie and stew in just enough water to keep them from browning. Cook for about forty minutes. Serve with a thickened sauce made from the stock in which they were boiled, adding the well beaten yolks and a tablespoon of tarragon vinegar.
A stuffed grape leaf with a lentil-and-meat filling, finished with an egg-yolk sauce. Two things need attention: the rice must have enough liquid to swell, and the yolk sauce must never boil.
- The hinge: the yolk sauceBeat the yolks with the vinegar, then temper them with a ladle of hot stock before returning the mixture to the pan off the heat. Poured straight into simmering stock they curdle into threads.
- Rice needs more water than the recipe implies"Just enough water to keep them from browning" works only if you top up as it cooks. A half cup of raw rice will absorb roughly a cup of liquid; keep the rolls barely covered and check the pan two or three times in the forty minutes.
- Parboiled lentilsHere this means simmered until nearly tender, about 15 minutes for brown or green lentils, then drained. Modern packaged "parboiled" grains are a different product. Red lentils will collapse into paste and are the wrong choice.
- Grape leavesBrined leaves from a jar are the most widely sold option today; rinse them well, and they may need little or no scalding, being already soft. Fresh leaves should be young and want a minute in boiling water to wilt.
- TyingKitchen twine, or simply fold the sides in and roll tightly seam-side down, then pack the rolls close in a single layer so they hold shape. A plate set on top keeps them submerged.
- Veal and hamGround veal is available at butchers but not every supermarket; ground pork or dark-meat turkey behaves the same way. The ham is doing the seasoning work, so account for its salt before adding the full teaspoon.
- DonenessGround veal and pork want 160F in the centre of a roll. Forty minutes of gentle stewing normally gets there, but check the thickest one.
- CorianderGround coriander loses its citrus edge quickly. Toast whole seeds briefly and grind them if you have a mill; an eighth of a teaspoon of stale powder contributes nothing.
- YieldTwelve rolls, which serves three or four as a main course with bread, or six as a first course.
Sarma comes from the Turkish sarmak, to wrap, and the word travelled with the dish across the Ottoman world into the Balkans, the Caucasus and the Levant, where wrapped vine leaves and cabbage leaves are still made under closely related names. The lentil filling and the stock-and-yolk sauce sharpened with tarragon vinegar recall, loosely, the egg-and-lemon finishes of Greek and Turkish cooking. It appears in a promotional cook book issued by the makers of Gold Medal flour, milled in Minneapolis; such books not uncommonly carried dishes labelled foreign or continental, adapted to ingredients an American grocer stocked.