Turkish stuffed pepper - Etli biber dolması + a little Turkish cuisine science

On Saturday walking in the Big Market I was thinking about the weekend menu when I saw that beautiful bell peppers are sold at one vendor. They had just perfect size for the Turkish stuffed peppers so I bought four pieces immediately.

Dolma

The Turkish word dolma (means "stuffed, filled") comes from the Turkish verb dolmak which means "to be filled". The dolma word is used for stuffed dished, for instance vegetables, meat, fish, fruits and even desserts.

The dolma's tipical filling is rice, minced meat, onion, tomato or tomate sauce, pine nut, olive oil, mint, dill, salt, pepper, sugar and raisin (if it's olive oiled). It can be served as meze, cooked in olive oil or as warm dish filled with minced meat.

The neigbour countries of Turkey took over the use of the word dolma, dolmadaki in Greece, t'olma in Georgia, tolma in Armenia, dolmeh on Persian areas, dolme in Arabian countries, sarmi in Bulgaria, sarma in Macedonia, sarma, which is known more as "stuffed cabbage" in Hungary and Romania.

When the dolma doesn't contain minced meat, it's often called yalancı dolma which means "fake" dolma.

The most popular dolma dishes are:

Vegetable dishes:

- Yaprak dolması vagy sarma - stuffed grape leaves

- Biber dolması - stuffed pepper (generally green or red peppers are used)

- Kabak dolması - stuffed zucchini, squash, pumpkin

- Kabak çiçeği dolması - töltött zucchini blossom

- Lahana dolması - stuffed cabbage

Besides the above dishes in the Turkish kitchen stuffed tomato, eggplant, leek, quince and onions are prepared.

Fish and seafood

Midye - mussel

Hamsi dolması - stuffed anchovy (Anchovy is a type of black sea fish and very popular in Istanbul)

Uskumru dolması - stuffed mackarel

Desserts

Kadayıf dolması - This is the only one Turkish dessert which is called dolma. (Clicking on the link you will see how it looks.)

But let's turn back to my small Turkish stuffed peppers, we say Etli biber dolması in Turkish. The word etli means "meaty".

Ingredients:

4 db middle size bell pepper (red or green)

For the filling:

20 dkg minced beef meat

1 small onion or 4 fresh onion (finely chopped)

1/4 cup parsley (finely chopped)

2 bigger or 4 smaller tomato (inner part)

1/4 cup rice

olive oil

2-3 tablespoon water

salt, pepper (to taste)

+ 1-2 tablespoon tomato sauce mixed with 3 tablespoon olive oil and 2 dl water

1. Wash the peppers, then cut off their tops but don't throw them away. We will need them later, since we will put them back after we fill our peppers. Clean out the seeds from the peppers.

2. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

3. For the filling mix the ingredients with a spoon and your hand. Fill the peppers with the ready-made mixture, but don't push the filling hard from the top only pat softly. At the end put the "hats' back on the peppers.

4. Lay the peppers in a big oven-proof pot sideways then pour the tomato sauce-olive oil-water mixture next to them. Bake in the oven for about 30-40 minutes with a lid half covered. If the rice get soft in the filling, we can be sure that the peppers are ready too.