Cabbage Dolmades ( Lahanodolmades)

[Athenaeus]

The thread for cabbage soup brought the discussion to cabbage dolmades.

Some story from the back of the stage

As you know the original dolmades are made of grape-leaves.
But you can collect grape leaves without damaging the grape plant only during the spring.

Good house keepers collect them, and freeze them.

Good house keepers though, make them all the time so, when the winter comes they are sort of leaves for dolmades.

So, they use those of cabbage

It's very very easy dish and an impressive first course for dinner with friends.
It can open the way to a nice roasted lamb

For 100 domlades , that means a big casserole

1 big cabbage
2 kilos of minced meet = 1k veal and 1 kl pork
2 eggs
1 cup of rice ( I do not know the ingredients there, the one you use to stuff things)
1 big onion, finely chopped
salt-pepper
1 pinch of nutmeg OR I pinch of cumin

Boil your cabbage in a big casserole. When you see that the leaves are loosing and it's easy to peel them, petal by petal, as the poet would say ( ) , remove it from the heat and drain it.

Knead the meat with the rice, spices and eggs.

Start folding your stuffing in the leaves
You are ready!
Grease your casserole with some olive oil and place them in layers.
Save some leaves to cover the surface and place a plate on the top to keep your domades in place while they are boiling .
Use a cup of stock or if you don't have some , some olive oil with fresh true butter. Some! Not much

Keep the liquid to use them for the abgolemono. You know what is this right?

Experiments so far :
1. Lately I use the following mixture for the minced meat instead of the 50-50 .
1/3 of veal, 1/3 of pork, 1/3 of lamb ! Delicious!

2. I used to use nutmeg but I have started using cumin instead!! Much better

This dish is very strong and powerfull. Do not start adding things.

Enjoy!



BTW how do you make dolmades? Minced meat and avgolemono?
I have some new ideas

[Suzanne]

My mother made it much like Athenaeus's recipe, except:

• She separated the cabbage into leaves before blanching; so all the "wrappers" were the same degree of softness
• Only ground beef; no mix of meats
• Also added some grated raw onion to the filling mix
• Covered the rolls with tomatoes -- chopped canned, or canned stewed -- to make the sauce

After many years, she started experimenting and adding unexpected ingredients, but the simplest recipe was always "superb," as my sister would say. And please, don't ask about the awful version that my mother and her sisters shared once that used equal amounts of grape jelly and bottled (Heinz) chili sauce for the sauce. The only time she ever had to throw out food that had not spoiled!

[amw5g]

Please forgive is this is so different as to render it off topic, but:
quick boil to loosen the leaves (I hear freezing the cabbage works as well). Then, I like to take some butter, day-old bread and semi-soft cheese (fontina, havarti, edam, gouda, etc) in slices and roll them up in the cabbage. Crumbled bacon is good in there, too.
Then, finish up by poaching them in some seasoned chicken broth. One the rolls come out, you can reduce the broth a little more. Server over rice or some more bread.
Not a very cerebral recipe!
-Andrew

[Isa]

Thank you Athenaeus. You just made my father so very happy.

[Athenaeus]

Nice to hear that Isa!

Hummmm,

Red sauce for cabbage dolmades, not bad idea but THEN use nutmeg instead of cumin in the mixture.Cumin and red sauce is too much.
Mine has onion too.

Suzanne why in the States you don't use the avgolemono sauce?
It's such a noble sauce!!!

maybe we have different tpes of cabbage because here you cannot unfold a cabbage without boiling it first . Too tight!

In the North of Greece they make cabbage dolmades using pickled cabbage leaves... very good for strong stomacs though

Let me tell you a version of wine leaved dolmades I make lately.

No meat in the stuffing that means they are yalandji -turkish word -means "fake"
They have just rice with much lemon juice , much onion, much mint.
And instead of avgolemono sauce...tzatziki to escort the dish!!!
You know the sauce made of yoghurt , garlic, cucumber

It's amazing!!!

I have to study your recipe Andrew i will come back on your recipe