Second Vegetarian dish on the blog: Λαχανοντολμάδες
While I was in Athens, my friend’s mom cooked for us a
delicious plate of Λαχανοντολμάδες, lahanodolmades (pronounced as lah-hah-no-dole-mah-thes). I enjoyed them so much that I was determined
to make them for myself as soon as I was back in the UK.
Λαχανο means Cabbage, and ντολμά comes from the Turkish word dolma, which means stuffed vegetable/leaf. So, Λαχανοντολμάδες, means stuffed cabbage.
Just to point out, I'm sure most of you are more familiar with Ντολμαδάκια, or small dolmades, which are the stuffed grape leaves served at most Greek restaurants. Same concept, different vegetable.
As is the case will all Greek cooking, I have fond memories
of my giagia making these every time I would visit Lefkada. And just to be clear, she and my mom would always
make the vegetarian version of the dish, as opposed to adding minced meat. I
called my mom up to ask for general instructions, and set off to make the
lahanodolmades.
Just a few things I want to point out before we begin. For
one, I used British Cabbage because it was the largest I could find—feel free
to use any cabbage you wish, as long as it has largish leaves. I also can never
find fresh dill here in the UK (is that not odd?), so I had to use dried—don’t
worry if you too run into this problem, the lahanodolmades will still taste
great. I also added grated carrot just to enrich the flavour of the dolmades. Lastly,
if you remember from my Augolemono Soup recipe, I always prefer to use Basmati
rice as opposed to long grain—use whatever you prefer.
