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To Make Dolmas, a Turkish Dish

Dolmas are meat and rice rolls wrapped in cabbage or vine leaves, simmered and served 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 filling

  1. Remove the meat from the bone of the mutton and mince it finely.

  2. Simmer the bones in 3 pints of water for 2 hours, then strain and let cool to skim off the fat.

  3. Fry the chopped onion in butter until golden, then mix it 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 scalded cabbage or vine leaf.

  2. Place the rolled dolmas in a stew pan and simmer 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 and 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. Onion + cabbagetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the savoury, rich meat filling that gives the dolmas their body and flavour.
Rice
Absorbs liquid and cooks into the filling, adding bulk and a soft texture.
Egg yolk
Enriches the sauce and helps it thicken smoothly when gently heated.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the dolmas instead of running off.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich meat and sauce.
Onion
Softens and sweetens when fried, adding depth to the filling.

The step that matters

Thickening the egg yolk sauce. Egg yolk and flour thicken when heated but can curdle or turn grainy if they boil or get too hot. Adding the sauce off the heat or warming it gently keeps it smooth.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, rice, pepper, onion, butter, egg, flour. 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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