spring: June 2010 Archives

In Turkey all kinds of things get stuffed with delicious rice - aubergines, tomatoes, peppers, cabbage leaves, vine leaves and more.  ‘Dolma’ are stuffed things and ‘sarma’ are rolled or wrapped things, so strictly these parcels are sarma.  They work really well with spring or summer greens, which arrive in my weekly veg box.

Versions of sarma are also found in Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Poland and elsewhere - sometimes with meaty fillings.  This combination of rice, pine nuts, currants and warm spices is typical of western Turkey - around Istanbul and down the Aegean coast, where the Romans established pine tree plantations millennia ago to feed their pine nut addiction. 

The trick is to partially cook the rice before filling the leaves - cooked enough so they won’t burst their wrappers in the cooking pot, but uncooked enough to expand a little to form tight parcels.  Sarma might be fiddly to make, but when you taste the results of your labour, you’ll realise why they spread so far.  

Cacık (pronounced ‘jajuk’) is the Turkish equivalent of Greek tzatziki - a garlicky yoghurt and cucumber dip/soup/salad, depending on what it’s served with.  It’s a fantastic accompaniment to kebabs, meatballs and cooked vegetable dishes, and there is some evidence that eating yoghurt with meat is good for us.  It’s usually made with pounded garlic cloves, but bright green wild garlic makes a very pretty alternative.