What does this exotic raw food dish and a beautiful raw cookbook author have in common? They're both named Sarma. Rawsome!
At first glance, this dish was given the traditional name of dolma, but upon further investigation I uncovered a different meaning.
The noun dolma derives from the Turkish verb dolmak for "stuffed things" and in this case stuffed vegetables, which could be any vegetable (pepper, eggplant, etc.) hollowed out and "stuffed" with goodies.
Moving on from there, I discovered the correct terminology is Sarma, a wrapped vegetable.
"Sarma is a verbal noun derived from the Turkish verb sarmak meaning "wrapping" or "rolling" in Turkish. Sarma is similar to its cousin dolma, and the two names for such rolls are used interchangeably in many languages." — Wikipedia
.jpg)
No, I'm not saying that Sarma Melngailis is a "wrapped" vegetable. From reading her blog and being a fan of her book, I would imagine she is a sweet, sincere person.
They just share a name and now I'm changing the name of my particular raw food dish to "Sweet Sarmas." It just fits.
This scrumptious appetizer is sweet, savory and succulence all wrapped up.
Sweet Sarmas
Servings: 40
20 large collard leaves
3 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon sea salt
2 cups pine nuts
¼ cup finely diced red onions
½ cup loosely packed fresh mint
½ cup loosely packed fresh dill
1 cup sun-dried tomatoes, finely chopped
1 cup golden raisins
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 Cut away the stem from the collard leaves, leaving you with two leaves.
2 Place the olive oil and sea salt in a large bowl. Add the leaves to the bowl and gently massage them with the oil mixture. Set aside.
3 In a food processor, briefly pulse pine nuts, mint, dill and onion until well combined. Pine nuts should be finely chopped.
4 In a large bowl, toss sun-dried tomatoes and raisins with the pine nut mixture. Add cinnamon, allspice and cumin.
5 Place one tablespoon of the filling center of a collard leaf. Fold bottom of leaf over the filling. Fold sides and roll into a cigar shape.