Biber Dolması

Ottoman stuffed peppers in the olive-oil style: sweet peppers packed with rice, pine nuts, currants, and herbs, simmered slowly and served cool as meze

Origin: Turkey

From the journey of Bell Pepper.

Dolma, from the Turkish verb meaning 'to be filled', is one of the great categories of Ottoman cooking, and the palace kitchens of Istanbul raised the stuffing of vegetables to a courtly art. The sweet pepper, arriving from the New World by way of Mediterranean trade in the sixteenth century, was ideally shaped for it, and biber dolması took its place beside stuffed vine leaves, aubergines, courgettes, and tomatoes. Turkish cooks distinguish two great families of dolma. The etli, made with minced meat in the filling, is served hot as a main dish with yoghurt. The zeytinyağlı, 'with olive oil', is meatless, enriched instead with pine nuts and currants and a generous quantity of good oil, cooked slowly and then, crucially, left to cool and served at room temperature or cold; the cooling is not a convenience but the intended state, since the oil sets around the rice and the flavours settle and deepen. This is the version given here, and it belongs to the meze table, to the summer, and to the long tradition of olive-oil vegetable dishes that runs the length of the Aegean. The sweet-sour play of currant against pine nut, and the warm scent of cinnamon and mint, are unmistakably Ottoman.

Ingredients

Peppers

  • 12 whole small sweet peppers for stuffing (dolmalık), tops cut off and reserved, seeds removed

Filling

  • 300 g short-grain rice, rinsed and drained
  • 3 whole onions, very finely chopped
  • 120 ml extra-virgin olive oil
  • 3 tbsp pine nuts
  • 3 tbsp currants, soaked in warm water and drained
  • 2 tbsp tomato purée (or 1 grated tomato)
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 0.5 tsp ground allspice
  • 1 tsp dried mint
  • 1 handful flat-leaf parsley and dill, chopped
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 1.5 tsp salt, or to taste

Cooking

  • 1 whole lemon, juiced
  • 400 ml hot water

Method

  1. Cook the onions gently in the olive oil for 12 to 15 minutes until soft and sweet, then add the pine nuts and fry until pale gold. Stir in the rice and cook for 2 minutes until the grains are coated and translucent at the edges.
  2. Add the currants, tomato purée, cinnamon, allspice, dried mint, sugar, and salt, along with 150 ml of water, and cook for 5 minutes until the water is absorbed and the rice is half-cooked. Take off the heat and stir through the fresh herbs. Cool slightly.
  3. Fill each pepper about two-thirds full with the rice mixture, pressing lightly, and cap with its reserved top.
  4. Stand the peppers upright and snug in a heavy pan, drizzle over the lemon juice and a little more olive oil, and pour in the hot water to come about a third of the way up. Set a small plate on top to hold them down, cover, and simmer very gently for 40 to 45 minutes, until the rice is tender and the peppers are soft.
  5. Turn off the heat and leave the peppers to cool completely in the pan, in their cooking liquid, before lifting them out. Serve at room temperature or cold, with lemon wedges.

Notes

For the meaty version, etli biber dolması, work 300 g of minced lamb or beef into the raw rice filling, omit the pine nuts and currants, and serve the dolma hot with a bowl of garlicky yoghurt. Turkish dolmalık peppers are pale, thin-skinned, and small; ordinary bell peppers work but are thicker and need a little longer. The same filling stuffs vine leaves, courgettes, aubergines, and tomatoes, and a mixed platter of all of them, karışık dolma, is the classic presentation.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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