Life: Idiotropic

Dolmas are those delicious rice filled grape leaves that you find at Greek restaurants... or at least that's what I thought. And while I won't get in between a Green and a Turk in the origins of their foods (my Turkish friends all say that Baklava et. al. are Turkish foods first that the Greeks copied - either way, it's all delicious), the names do get a little confusing.

Today I went to Senay's house to learn to make Dolmas. No, not the filled grape leaves. I did roll a couple of those today, but those are Sarma - with a filling similar to Dolma, but without the meat. Easy to make... drop filling in the center of the leaf, fold in the sides, then roll tightly and steam. Dolma in Turkish is something different... a rice and meat stuffing in vegetables like zucchini. Tender, moist, full of flavor. I could eat these every day!

Coffee or tea? Not one to turn down coffee - any coffee - and excited to try what sounded both exciting and exotic - a cup of Turkish coffee, I opted for the former. Turkish coffee is different - really different. You measure 1 1/2 heaped teaspoons of finely ground Turkish coffee into a small cup of water. Add a teaspoon or so sugar to taste, and then cook and mix well. Double/triple... for more servings. That makes one. Pour into a tea cup and enjoy? Ahh. The enjoy part. Senay went light on the sugar, but for me, the coffee was still very sweet. But the first half of the cup at least had the consistency of other coffee. And then I reached the middle, where the liquid layer sat on top of a thick syrup-like sludge. Probably delicious for one used to that thick chewy consistency, but for me, I just couldn't take much more than a couple deliberate tries. I did notice that many coffee cups on the counter were half full. Thankfully, I also had the opportunity to try some Turkish tea - brewed in a double tea pot where the tea is made very strong on top with plain water boiling underneath. You pour the strong tea in first, then can pour in water to reach the preferred tea strength. Very clever. And this was yummy especially served in pretty Turkish tea glasses.

Senay took our conversational cooking group to a whole new level this morning with so many dishes already made for us to sample while we cooked. Sarma - the stuffed grape leaves, Kisir - a delicious Bulgar salad similar to tabbouleh, and Çemen - bread with a thick spiced tomato spread. All delicious, so we piled our plates, talked, and snuck back for seconds and thirds as the morning went on talking about foods and sniffing jars of spices to know what nane and kekik were (mint and thyme).

Wisdom abounds at these socials... we learned from Ilaria two Italian expressions. One translates to "In a small bottle, you find a good wine." Sounds nicer that our "one on the lips, forever on the hips" rhyme. Then we giggled over the Turkish words and learned that in Italy, "when someone talks not so clearly, we say they're speaking Turkish." The expression on Senay's face when she heard this was priceless. So nice we are all friends and can laugh at these things together.

Ok... so on to the recipe... or my chicken scratch notes as I watched Senay cook.

Wash and lightly peal 4 zucchini. Cut them into 2-3 pieces depending on the length of the zucchini - 3" pieces are good.

Core the pieces leaving 1/2" solid on the bottom so they can stand up like a cup. Set aside.

Mix 1 minced onion and 15 heaped T. rice pre-washed. Add about 4 t. mint, 1 t. black pepper, 2.5 t. dill, 1 t. thyme and 3 t. salt. Mix well. Add 2 T. tomato paste to the rice mixture, then mix in 1 cup ground meat (we used beef - they would also use lamb). Add 1/4 c. olive oil and 1/4 cup sunflower oil. Mix well.

Puncture the edge of each zucchini a couple times to vent. Fill the zucchini 3/4 full with the rice mixture. Stand in a pot (see photo).

Boil water separately. Pour the water into the empty mixture bowl to mix with the spices clinging to the boil. Pour over and into the tops of the zucchini. Sprinkle with a little salt. (The tops each had a little water in the tops and there was about 2" of water in the pot.)

Cover. Turn on high heat and bring to a boil. Turn down the heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

Serve with plain yogurt mixed with some crushed fresh garlic.

If you are making Sarma with the grape leaves, then you either use fresh leaves, or you can buy the salt packed ones in the store. When using the store bought leaves, soak them over night in water, then boil them in water for 1-2 minutes before using. The Sarma filling is the same as the Dolma filling except without the meat.

Notes: The Bastard of Istanbul is a book the ladies were excited about written by a Turkish author, but translated into Italian. It is a book they were passing along to each other sharing. We also talked about names. Lara is a popular Italian name taken from Dr. Zivago - was popular in that time. And my friend, Rosella, was named after Scarlet O'Hara. Rosella being the Italian version of Scarlet.