Loca-busy? Locavore?

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Local International: from Turkey


It has occurred to me that this blog has been sadly neglected.  Of course, sometimes life gets in the way; in this case it was:  a new puppy, a stressed-out husband, a stressed-out houseguest/roommate, a freelance editing job, holidays, snow days, brutal winter weather (making doing everything else take twice as long), and a child who’s been swamped with homework.  But, never fear, we have still been cooking and eating local!  Winter is the time when you have to be most creative, and depend a lot on stored items and the local co-op to maintain your connection to local ingredients.

Our friend has been staying with us for a few weeks, and—lucky for us—has brought her own brand of “local.”  She’s brought some preserved items from her parents’ garden in her native Turkey:  walnuts, hazelnuts, tomato paste, herbs, and spices that still have the flavor of the sun in them.  I realized I’d never really tasted hazelnuts until I sampled the ones her father had roasted.  We were in for a special treat on Sunday when she and I “slaved” away in the kitchen, side by side.  I made my stuffed peppers (which I’m sure will be featured in a future blog post), and she made Turkish dolma; both are labors of love.  I watched her as carefully as I could (trying to avoid chopping off one of my fingers at the same time), so that hopefully I could recreate the dish at a later time.

She started with organic collard greens.  After washing the leaves and trimming the stems, she put them to boil for about 30 minutes, so that the leaves would be nice and pliable.  Then she squeezed and drained the blood out of a pound of ground beef from our local Triple S Farms.  She explained to me that this was always a disgusting task for her since living in the U.S.  Meat in Turkey is halal, made according to Muslim standards.  Butchered meat is drained of excess blood for a significant period of time before it can be cooked and consumed.  I had to agree with her that meat wouldn’t be as unpleasant to prepare if it didn’t have so much blood!

To the ground beef she generously added salt, pepper, fresh chopped parsley, grated onions, and uncooked white rice.  (I’m fairly sure there were some ingredients in there I didn’t see while I was busy making my peppers.)  The mixture ended up fairly sticky, and when the collard greens were done, she flattened the spine of each leaf, and painstakingly rolled up a couple of tablespoons of the ground beef mixture into a tiny, cigar-shaped and –sized roll, tucking in the sides as she went.  The little rolls went side-by-side into a dutch oven.  When she ended up with too much of the ground beef and not enough collard green leaves, she stuffed a couple of small onions and a red pepper with the mixture. 
photos courtesy of Nesrin
She covered the whole thing in her mother’s tomato paste, which she had watered down enough to make a thin sauce.  The dolmas needed to be weighted down with a plate so they wouldn’t open during cooking.  On went the lid, and back to the stove to simmer for 30-40 minutes.  The dolmas were done when a sample showed the meat and rice were cooked thoroughly; the rice cooks with the added liquid and moisture of the collard greens.
 
Beautiful and delicious


The dolmas came off the stove, and the stuffed peppers out of the oven, right before our favorite Downton Abbey.  So we hauled our plates, silverware, napkins, tray of peppers, tray of dolmas, and a container of full-fat organic yogurt to top the dolmas up to the TV room.  I have to say, the TV show didn't hold my attention nearly as well as the delicately wrapped dolmas topped with creamy yogurt.  What a feast!

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