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Dolmas (with Rice)
1/2 POUND GROUND 1/4 CUP RICE, UNCOOKED BUT MOIST LAMB 2 TABLESPOONS BUTTER MILK SALT AND PEPPER MINCED PARSLEY 2 SLICES BREAD CABBAGE LEAVES Mix lamb, melted butter, seasonings, well-washed rice, and bread well-soaked in milk , since this furnishes the steam that cooks the rice soft. Form into small thick cakes. Wrap in cabbage leaves, tie with string and bury in embers. Have a bottle of your favorite sauce on hand when you open up the dolmas. They should be unwrapped only as eaten, to keep them piping hot.
A camp version of stuffed cabbage cooked directly in wood embers, with raw rice inside the meat rather than alongside it. The whole thing depends on trapped moisture, so the bread-and-milk step is not optional.
- The ingredients, sorted outHalf a pound of ground lamb, 1/4 cup raw rice (rinsed and left damp), 2 tablespoons butter, 2 slices bread soaked in milk, minced parsley, salt and pepper, and cabbage leaves for wrapping. The recipe gives no yield; half a pound of meat would make perhaps four small cakes, a portion for two.
- Why the soaked bread mattersRaw rice inside a meat cake will only soften if there is free liquid to turn to steam. Squeeze the bread lightly so it is saturated but not dripping, and work it in thoroughly rather than leaving pockets of dry crumb.
- The rice must be moist, not dryRinse the rice in several changes of water and use it still wet from washing. Dry grains will stay gritty at the centre even after a long burial in the embers.
- Cabbage leavesUse the large outer leaves of a green cabbage, and dip them in boiling water for 30 seconds so they go pliable and will not split when tied. Two overlapping leaves per cake give a margin against burn-through.
- StringPlain cotton kitchen twine only. Synthetic or coated string will melt into the food in embers.
- Embers, not flameWait until the fire has burned down to a deep bed of grey-coated coals with no visible flame. Bury the parcels under an inch or two of ash with coals over them; direct flame will carbonise the leaves before the rice cooks.
- Timing and donenessThe recipe gives no time. Allow something in the region of three quarters of an hour for cakes of this size, judging by the rice rather than the lamb, but an ember bed is too variable for a fixed figure. Open one to check: the rice should be tender all through and the meat should register 160F at the centre.
- ServingThe instruction to unwrap only as eaten is sound, since the leaf holds the heat. Lemon wedges or a garlicky yogurt suit lamb dolmas better than a bottled sauce.