All the flavours of the world can be found in the WUR community. Fatma Akın (30), a PhD candidate in the Animal Breeding and Genomics group, takes us to her home country, Turkey.
‘Turkish cuisine is best known in the western world for the kebab, but it also offers vegetarian dishes like this dolma. My mother makes this for special occasions like Eid, the end of Ramadan.’
Ingredients
- Sun-dried aubergines (9) and bell peppers (18)
- Yoghurt
Rice filling mixture
- Half a cup of rice, rinsed
- 1 onion and 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 2 tomatoes, grated
- 1 tbsp biber salçası ( red pepper paste)
- One handful of flat parsley, finely chopped
- 2 tsp each of salt, dried mint and red pepper flakes; 1 teaspoon each of cayenne pepper, cumin and black pepper (all ground)
- The juice of half a lemon
- Olive oil
Sauce
- 1 tbsp tomato puree (salça)
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp pomegranate molasses
- Hot water
Preparation
- Boil the sun-dried vegetables for 3-5 minutes until soft. Rinse them under cold water in a sieve. Leave to dry.
- Heat 2 tbsp of olive oil and fry the onion and garlic. Add the rinsed and strained rice and tomatoes. Cook the rice mixture until it’s almost done. Put the rice mixture into a bowl.
- Mix the remaining ingredients with 1 tbsp of olive oil. Stir this mix through the rice mixture.
- Stuff the vegetables halfway with the filling. Arrange the stuffed vegetables tightly side by side on the bottom of a large pan (so the filling doesn’t spill out).
- Mix the sauce ingredients and pour the sauce over the dolmas. Then add water so the dolmas are half immersed. Bring to the boil and then simmer on a low heat for 30 minutes. Done!
- Serve hot or cold with yoghurt and/or dried mint. Afiyet olsun!
