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Sarma
The spring counterpart to winter's cabbage rolls: small, dill-heavy lamb sarmale in vine leaves, finished with a borș-sour cream splash
- Prep
- 50 min
- Cook
- 90 min
- Serves
- 6
Ingredients
- Vine leaves in brine — 350 g (about 40 leaves)
- Lamb shoulder, minced — 600 g
- Short-grain rice — 80 g
- Onion, finely diced — 200 g
- Sunflower oil — 40 ml
- Fresh dill — 20 g
- Fresh mint — 6 g
- Tomato passata — 200 g
- Fermented borș or lemon juice — 300 ml / 40 ml
- Salt — 12 g
- Black pepper — 3 g
- Sour cream, to serve — 200 g
- Smoked bacon (optional) — 80 g
Method
- Rinse vine leaves; blanch 2 minutes if leathery, snip off stems.
- Sweat onion in oil 8 minutes; cool. Mix with lamb, rice, chopped dill, mint, salt and pepper.
- Roll small: 35 g filling per leaf, shiny side out, sides folded, rolled snug — vine-leaf sarmale should be two-bite size.
- Line a pot with torn leaves; pack rolls in tight circles, tucking bacon between if using.
- Pour over passata, borș and water to barely cover; weight with a plate.
- Simmer, covered, at a bare tremble 80–90 minutes.
- Rest 20 minutes in the liquor.