Armenian Summer Dolma
Armenian summer dolma looks nothing like the grape-leaf parcels most people picture. Here the vegetables are the wrapper: eggplant, bell peppers, and tomatoes are hollowed out and packed with a juicy meat filling. The recipe comes from Zhanna Levina, and it captures the family side of Caucasian cooking, where one big pot goes to the table for everyone at once.
The flavor rests on fatty beef cut with lamb and the Armenian spice trio — cumin (called zira), black pepper, and a generous handful of cilantro. Purple basil in the braising liquid adds an anise note, and over the hour-and-a-half braise the garlicky tomato base reduces into a thick sauce.
Make It Your Own
- Cook the rice only halfway — it finishes inside the vegetables and stays loose instead of turning gummy.
- Save the scooped-out centers: the tomato pulp goes into the braising liquid, and the pepper and eggplant flesh tucks into gaps in the pot.
- Keep the heat low under the lid; a hard boil (much above a bare 100°C / 212°F shimmer) collapses the vegetables and they lose their shape.
Serve hot, spooning over the sauce from the bottom of the pot, with a dollop of matsoni — a tangy Armenian cultured milk much like thick plain yogurt, for which Greek yogurt or sour cream substitutes well. It’s even better the next day.
You might also like
Ingredients
Instructions
Make the meat filling, ideally from fatty beef with a little lamb. Run the meat through a grinder.
Cook the rice until half done, then rinse under cold water.
Finely chop the cilantro and onion and add them to the meat. Add the pepper, salt, and cumin, then knead the filling well.
Trim and core the peppers, cut the stems off the eggplant, and slice the tops off the tomatoes. Scoop out the centers to make room for the filling, but keep the flesh you remove.
Pack the vegetables tightly with the meat and arrange them in a large, deep, heavy-bottomed pot. Pour in oil to a depth of about 3 cm. Layer the vegetables: peppers, eggplant, then tomatoes. Pack them in snugly, filling any gaps with small balls of the meat filling.
Make the braising liquid: chop the reserved tomato pulp, squeeze in the garlic, add salt and half a cup of water. Pour the mixture over all the vegetables and scatter the chopped basil on top.
Set over medium heat. Once the liquid comes to a boil, lower the heat, cover the pot, and braise for an hour and a half.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.