Sarma is a dish of
grapeA grape is a non-climacteric fruit, specifically a berry, that grows on the perennial and deciduous woody vines of the genus Vitis. Grapes can be eaten raw or they can be used for making jam, juice, jelly, vinegar, wine, grape seed extracts, raisins, molasses and grape seed oil. Grapes are also...
,
cabbageCabbage is a popular cultivar of the species Brassica oleracea Linne of the Family Brassicaceae and is a leafy green vegetable...
or
chardChard , is a leafy green vegetable often used in Mediterranean cooking. While the leaves are always green, chard stalks vary in color. Chard has been bred to have highly nutrious leaves at the expense of the root...
leaves rolled around a filling usually based on minced meat. It is found in the
cuisines of the former Ottoman EmpireOttoman cuisine is the cuisine of the Ottoman Empire and its successors in Anatolia, the Balkans, and much of the Middle East.- Description :...
from the Middle East to the Balkans and Central Europe.
Etymology and names
Sarma means 'a wrapped thing' in
Turkish languageTurkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
, from the verb
sarmak 'to wrap' or 'to roll'.
Sarma may also be called
yaprak dolması 'filled leaf' or simply
dolma 'stuffed thing'.
DolmaDolma is a family of stuffed vegetable dishes in the cuisines of the former Ottoman Empire and surrounding regions such as Russia, Middle East and the Caucasus and Central and South Asia. Perhaps the best-known is the grape-leaf dolma. Common vegetables to stuff include onion, zucchini, eggplant,...
, which properly refers to stuffed vegetables, is often conflated with
sarma.
Besides the savory dish of leaf-wrapped filling,
sarma in
GreekGreek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
can also refer to sweet
pastriesPastry is the name given to various kinds of baked products made from ingredients such as flour, sugar, milk, butter, shortening, baking powder and/or eggs. Small cakes, tarts and other sweet baked products are called "pastries."...
similar to
baklavaBaklava is a rich, sweet pastry made of layers of filo pastry filled with chopped nuts and sweetened with syrup or honey. It is characteristic of the cuisines of the former Ottoman Empire and much of central and southwest Asia....
,
saray sarma and
fıstık sarma, which are prepared by wrapping
phylloPhyllo, filo, or fillo dough is paper-thin sheets of unleavened flour dough used for making pastries in Middle Eastern and Balkan cuisine.-History:An early, thick form of phyllo appears to be of Central Asian Turkic origin...
dough around a mixture of crushed nuts and syrup.
Preparation
Minced
meatMeat is animal flesh that is used as food. Most often, this means the skeletal muscle and associated fat and other tissues, but it may also describe other edible tissues such as organs and offal...
(usually
beefBeef is the culinary name for meat from bovines, especially domestic cattle. Beef can be harvested from cows, bulls, heifers or steers. It is one of the principal meats used in the cuisine of the Middle East , Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Europe and the United States, and is also important in...
,
porkPork is the culinary name for meat from the domestic pig , which is eaten in many countries. It is one of the most commonly consumed meats worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BC....
,
vealVeal is the meat of young cattle , as opposed to meat from older cattle. Though veal can be produced from a calf of either sex and any breed, most veal comes from male calves of dairy cattle breeds...
, or a combination thereof, but also lamb, goat, sausage and various bird meat such as duck and goose),
riceRice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...
, onions, and various spices, including
saltSalt, also known as table salt, or rock salt, is a mineral that is composed primarily of sodium chloride , a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of ionic salts. It is essential for animal life in small quantities, but is harmful to animals and plants in excess...
,
pepperBlack pepper is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit, known as a peppercorn when dried, is approximately in diameter, dark red when fully mature, and, like all drupes, contains a single seed...
and various local herbs are mixed together and then rolled into large plant leaves, which may be
cabbageCabbage is a popular cultivar of the species Brassica oleracea Linne of the Family Brassicaceae and is a leafy green vegetable...
(fresh or pickled),
chardChard , is a leafy green vegetable often used in Mediterranean cooking. While the leaves are always green, chard stalks vary in color. Chard has been bred to have highly nutrious leaves at the expense of the root...
,
sorrelThe docks and sorrels, genus Rumex L., are a genus of about 200 species of annual, biennial and perennial herbs in the buckwheat family Polygonaceae....
,
vine leafGrapevine is the common name for plants of the genus Vitis. Other meanings include:*Grapevine , a term often used to describe a form of communication by means of gossip or rumor, as in "heard it through the grapevine"...
(fresh or pickled) or
broadleaf plantainPlantago major is a species of Plantago, family Plantaginaceae. The plant is native to most of Europe and northern and central Asia. It is widely naturalised elsewhere in the world, where it is a common weed. As a result, it has many common names...
leaves. The combination is then boiled for several hours. While specific recipes vary across the region, it is uniformly recognized that the best cooking method is slow boiling in large clay pots. A special ingredient,
flourFlour is a powder which is made by grinding cereal grains, other seeds or roots . It is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many cultures, making the availability of adequate supplies of flour a major economic and political issue at various times throughout history...
browned in
fatFats consist of a wide group of compounds that are generally soluble in organic solvents and generally insoluble in water. Chemically, fats are triglycerides, triesters of glycerol and any of several fatty acids. Fats may be either solid or liquid at room temperature, depending on their structure...
(called
rântaşRântaş is a Romanian sauce based on oil and grilled flour. If chopped onions are added, the recipe is called rântaş de ceapa. This sauce is a component of certain ciorba and the sarmale....
in Romania, where it may also contain finely chopped onion, or
ajmpren in Slovenian), is often added at the end of the process. Other fine-tuned flavors include
cherry treeCherry Tree may refer to:* A tree that produces cherries* An ornamental cherry tree that produces cherry blossomsPlaces* Cherry Tree, Pennsylvania, a borough in Indiana County, Pennsylvania, United States* Cherry Tree, Oklahoma...
leaves in some locations; other recipes require the use of pork fat—there are innumerable variations across the region. Vegetarian options as well as those made with
fishFish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...
exist.
In
TurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, the word "sarma" is used interchangeably with
dolmaDolma is a family of stuffed vegetable dishes in the cuisines of the former Ottoman Empire and surrounding regions such as Russia, Middle East and the Caucasus and Central and South Asia. Perhaps the best-known is the grape-leaf dolma. Common vegetables to stuff include onion, zucchini, eggplant,...
for stuffed vine leaves,
cabbageCabbage is a popular cultivar of the species Brassica oleracea Linne of the Family Brassicaceae and is a leafy green vegetable...
or
chardChard , is a leafy green vegetable often used in Mediterranean cooking. While the leaves are always green, chard stalks vary in color. Chard has been bred to have highly nutrious leaves at the expense of the root...
. Most of the time, the name of the vegetable used is added to describe the dish such as
lahana sarma (cabbage) or
yaprak sarma (grape leaves). As with dolma, sarma is combined with
yoghurtYoghurt, yogurt or yogourt is a dairy product produced by bacterial fermentation of milk. The bacteria used to make yoghurt are known as "yoghurt cultures"...
when it contains minced meat (beef, veal, lamb) and is served hot. The filling of sarma in Turkey usually contains rice, herbs, onion,
currantThe Zante currant , or currant are dried berries of small, sweet, seedless grape variety Black Corinth . The name comes from the Anglo-French phrase "raisins de Corinthe" and the Ionian island of Zakynthos , which was once the major producer and exporter...
s and
pine nutPine nuts are the edible seeds of pines . About 20 species of pine produce seeds large enough to be worth harvesting; in other pines the seeds are also edible, but are too small to be of great value as a human food....
s, herbs such as
parsleyParsley is a species of Petroselinum in the family Apiaceae, native to the central Mediterranean region , naturalized elsewhere in Europe, and widely cultivated as an herb, a spice and a vegetable.- Description :Garden parsley is a bright green hairless biennial herbaceous plant in temperate...
and
dillDill is a perennial herb. It is the sole species of the genus Anethum, though classified by some botanists in a related genus as Peucedanum graveolens C.B.Clarke.-Growth:...
, and several spices including
cinnamonCinnamon is a spice obtained from the inner bark of several trees from the genus Cinnamomum that is used in both sweet and savoury foods...
and
black pepperBlack pepper is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit, known as a peppercorn when dried, is approximately in diameter, dark red when fully mature, and, like all drupes, contains a single seed...
.
In continental parts of
CroatiaCroatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
, sarma is identical to the
BosnianBosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...
type, and includes rice and minced meat, as well as dried smoked beef. However, in Dalmatia, there is a special subtype known as
arambašićiArambašići are morsels of minced meat, onions and garlic in vine-leaf parcels, often made with sauer-kraut. This dish is a speciality of Sinj, Croatia....
(named after Turkish soldiers — harambaše) typical of the
DalmatiaDalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....
n hinterland. The stuffing of arambašići does not include rice, the meat is diced (rather than minced), and spices include lemon, cinnamon, cloves and muscat nuts. Unlike that of predominantly Muslim regions, sarma in Croatia is cooked in a pot with dry pork, prosciutto bone or sausages. It is traditionally served on New Year's Eve and weddings. In Serbia sarma is cooked the same way as in Croatia, by using sauerkraut leaves, ground meat, rice and seasonings. Sarma rolls are slowly simmered for a long time in large pots with lard and layers of smoked pork, seasoned with
VegetaVegeta is a condiment which is a mixture of spices and various vegetables invented in 1959 by a Bosnian Croat scientist Zlata Bartl, and has become a product sold worldwide....
(vegetable seasoning), bay leaves and paprika. Some family recipes include finishing sarma by baking it in oven which gives it distinctive flavor. Sarma is one of the staple meals for festive occasions like Christmas, New Year, Easter, birthdays, family saint patron's day (slava) etc. Also, there are various Serbian recipes of sarma prepared in accordance to Orthodox Christian religious restrictions on using meat and animal fat during period of Lent. Lenten sarma is usually stuffed with rice, shredded carrots, onions, seasonings, occasionally walnuts or even chunks of smoked fish, and cooked in water and vegetable oil.
It is also cooked by Italians who were exiled from Dalmatia after World War II, especially those who now live in northwestern Italy. Italian writer
Enzo BettizaEnzo Bettiza is a Dalmatian-born Italian novelist, journalist and politician.-Biography:Bettiza was born in Dalmatia, in a rich family of the Italian minority. His mother stemmed from a family of the Croatian isle of Brač...
included
arambašićiArambašići are morsels of minced meat, onions and garlic in vine-leaf parcels, often made with sauer-kraut. This dish is a speciality of Sinj, Croatia....
(sarma) as one of the five central meals of Dalmatian cuisine in his autobiographical book
Esilio (Exile).
Unlike other Eastern European cultures, the people of Southeastern Europe overwhelmingly use
sour cabbageSauerkraut , directly translated from German: "sour cabbage", is finely shredded cabbage that has been fermented by various lactic acid bacteria, including Leuconostoc, Lactobacillus, and Pediococcus. It has a long shelf-life and a distinctive sour flavor, both of which result from the lactic acid...
as opposed to fresh cabbage. At the end of the autumn, families traditionally prepare the sour cabbage (as whole cabbage, or as individual leaves, but not shredded) for sarma-making.
Another kind of sarma are those rolled in (grape) vine leaves— smaller and with slightly different taste (see
dolmaDolma is a family of stuffed vegetable dishes in the cuisines of the former Ottoman Empire and surrounding regions such as Russia, Middle East and the Caucasus and Central and South Asia. Perhaps the best-known is the grape-leaf dolma. Common vegetables to stuff include onion, zucchini, eggplant,...
).
Sarma is normally a heavy dish (though families are increasingly substituting the traditional pork fat with
olive oilOlive oil is an oil obtained from the olive , a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin. It is commonly used in cooking, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and soaps and as a fuel for traditional oil lamps...
or other oils. Thus, it is usually eaten during winter. Traditionally, they are served along with
polentaPolenta is a dish made from boiled cornmeal. The word "polenta" is borrowed from Italian.-Description:Polenta is made with ground yellow or white cornmeal , which can be ground coarsely or finely depending on the region and the texture desired.As it is known today, polenta derives from earlier...
or potatoes, which are sometimes
mashedMashed potato is made by mashing freshly boiled potatoes with a ricer, fork, potato masher, food mill, or whipping them with a hand beater. Dehydrated and frozen mashed potatoes are available in many places...
. Other optional add-ons include
sour cream Sour cream is a dairy product rich in fats obtained by fermenting a regular cream by certain kinds of lactic acid bacteria. The bacterial culture, which is introduced either deliberately or naturally, sours and thickens the cream. Its name stems from the production of lactic acid by bacterial...
, yogurt and
horseradishHorseradish is a perennial plant of the Brassicaceae family, which also includes mustard, wasabi, broccoli, and cabbages. The plant is probably native to south eastern Europe and the Arab World , but is popular around the world today...
.
Cabbage rolls served in tomato sauce, though common in
North AmericaNorth America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
, are much less common in Southeastern Europe. Unlike its
PolishPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
(Gołąbki) or
UkrainianUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
equivalents, the filling is predominantly meat, as opposed to
riceRice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...
—in fact, it is only in recent times that rice has been added to sarma. Originally sarma was made with
barleyBarley is a major cereal grain, a member of the grass family. It serves as a major animal fodder, as a base malt for beer and certain distilled beverages, and as a component of various health foods...
or, in dire times of low barley crops, with
buckwheatBuckwheat refers to a variety of plants in the dicot family Polygonaceae: the Eurasian genus Fagopyrum, the North American genus Eriogonum, and the Northern Hemisphere genus Fallopia. Either of the latter two may be referred to as "wild buckwheat"...
. It's from Emirdag
Serving
In
TurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, sarma is eaten as an everyday, ordinary dish. There are also restaurants specializing in sarma.
In
SloveniaSlovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
,
Bosnia and HerzegovinaBosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...
,
CroatiaCroatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
,
SerbiaSerbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
,
ArmeniaArmenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
,
BulgariaBulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
,
Republic of MacedoniaMacedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
and, especially, in
RomaniaRomania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
,
sarmale is a traditional meal for
ChristmasChristmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
and other religious holidays (in Serbia also for
slavaThe Slava , also called Krsna Slava and Krsno ime , is the Serbian Orthodox tradition of the ritual celebration and veneration of a family's own patron saint. The family celebrates the Slava annually on the patron saint's feast day...
and
EasterEaster is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...
, in Slovenia and Croatia for
New Year's DayNew Year's Day is observed on January 1, the first day of the year on the modern Gregorian calendar as well as the Julian calendar used in ancient Rome...
, and in Bosnia and Herzegovina for
Eid ul-FitrEid ul-Fitr, Eid al-Fitr, Id-ul-Fitr, or Id al-Fitr , often abbreviated to Eid, is a Muslim holiday that marks the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting . Eid is an Arabic word meaning "festivity," while Fiṭr means "breaking the fast"...
). Traditionally, a pot filled with
sarme/
sarmale is usually prepared for an entire family. Sarma is often served as one of the main dishes during
weddingA wedding is the ceremony in which two people are united in marriage or a similar institution. Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethnic groups, religions, countries, and social classes...
ceremonies. In
diasporicA diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...
communities, it is often cherished as a reminder of their former
homelandA homeland is the concept of the place to which an ethnic group holds a long history and a deep cultural association with —the country in which a particular national identity began. As a common noun, it simply connotes the country of one's origin...
s.
Similar dishes
The name
sarma has been borrowed by many languages:
South SlavicThe South Slavic languages comprise one of three branches of the Slavic languages. There are approximately 30 million speakers, mainly in the Balkans. These are separated geographically from speakers of the other two Slavic branches by a belt of German, Hungarian and Romanian speakers...
сармa/sarma,
RomanianRomanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
sarmale,
GreekGreek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
σαρμάδες; Arabic uses the Turkish word يبرق
yabraq 'leaf' instead. Other names are descriptive: 'cabbage
dolma, 'stuffed cabbage', Greek
λαχανοντολμάδες 'cabbage
dolma, Arabic ملفوف [malfūf] 'cabbage'. Outside the Balkans, the
SlavicThe Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
and Moldovan name means 'little pigeon' (from the shape):
MoldovanMoldovan is one of the names of the Romanian language as spoken in the Republic of Moldova, where it is official. The spoken language of Moldova is closer to the dialects of Romanian spoken in northeastern Romania, and the two countries share the same literary standard...
găluşti,
PolishPolish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
gołąbki,
RussianRussian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
:
голубцы;
cf. gołąbki.
The popular
RussianRussian cuisine is diverse, as Russia is the largest country in the world. Russian cuisine derives its varied character from the vast and multi-cultural expanse of Russia. Its foundations were laid by the peasant food of the rural population in an often harsh climate, with a combination of...
version is called "
голубцы" (
golubtsy), and is usually made of cabbage leaves.
In
German cuisineGerman cuisine is a style of cooking derived from the nation of Germany. It has evolved as a national cuisine through centuries of social and political change with variations from region to region. The southern regions of Germany, including Bavaria and neighbouring Swabia, share many dishes....
a similar dish is known as
Kohlrollen,
Kohlrouladen or
Krautwickel.
In
French cuisineFrench cuisine is a style of food preparation originating from France that has developed from centuries of social change. In the Middle Ages, Guillaume Tirel , a court chef, authored Le Viandier, one of the earliest recipe collections of Medieval France...
is known as
chou farci.
External links