Today brings the second installment of our ongoing series: Cooking In Armenia. Today's our host sister's birthday, so our host mom was busy all day making an enormous feast to celebrate the day. We got to help her make the tolma. Tolma is a traditional Armenian dish in which spiced ground beef, rice & onions are wrapped in blanched cabbage and grape leaves, then simmered on the stove for long periods of time.
The hardest part is figuring out how to make best use of the irregularly shaped cabbage leaves, and then actually accomplishing the cute-mini-burrito-style wraps.
All wrapped up, they look like little spring rolls. We eventually filled to whole pot. The plate at the bottom is to keep the bottom-most layer of tolma from burning and sticking to the bottom of the pots.
The plate is necessary because all the pots and pans here are of thin aluminum, very prone to hotspots. The cookware is just generally less high-tech than in the States- most notably (to me) the pan handles. I'm used to at least semi insulated pan handles back home, so I didn't think twice about grabbing the handle to a pan on the stove to move it to a more convenient position. Turns out that was a mistake, and I've got a mild burn on my hand in the shape of the pan handle to prove it.
But apart from that minor mishap, the day went really well. The tolma (and the rest of the food) was delicious, and we had a really good time celebrating the day with our host sister.
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