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To Make Dolmas, a Turkish Dish

A Turkish dish of minced mutton, rice, and spices rolled in cabbage or vine leaves, simmered and topped with a lemony butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and cabbage are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Make Dolmas, a Turkish Dish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Remove the meat from the bone of the mutton and mince it finely, including a small amount of fat.

  2. Simmer the bones in 3 pints of water for 2 hours.

  3. Strain the broth and let it cool to skim off the fat.

Make the filling

  1. Fry the chopped onion in butter until golden.

  2. Mix the fried onion with the minced meat, rice, pepper, and salt.

Roll and cook

  1. Take a walnut-sized portion of the mixture and roll it loosely in a well-scalded cabbage leaf or vine leaf.

  2. Place the rolled leaves in a stew pan.

  3. Simmer the rolled leaves for 2 hours.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the egg yolk, a small amount of butter, flour, and lemon juice to create a sauce.

  2. Pour the sauce over the dolmas.

  3. Serve hot.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Pepper + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Tea + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together197 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Onion + cabbagetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the main meat flavour and richness in the filling and broth.
Rice
Absorbs juices and softens during simmering, giving the filling body.
Egg yolk
Emulsifies with butter and lemon to thicken the sauce into a smooth, creamy coating.
Flour
Thickens the sauce by binding with the liquid as it heats.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich meat and sharpens the egg sauce.

The step that matters

Sauce thickening. Egg yolk can curdle or scramble if it gets too hot or is added to boiling liquid too quickly. Whisking it gently with butter, flour and lemon, and warming it slowly, keeps the sauce smooth and thick.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, tea, rice, pepper, onion, butter, egg):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, tea, rice, pepper, onion, butter, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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