Little chard rolls- Sarmice

SARMICE (small sarmas) is something we make a lot at home. It is basically ground meat rolled up in leafy greens. There are different kinds of sarmas for different seasons throughout the year. The ones we make in the winter or heavier, greased up inside and out, smoked meat on top, and fermented cabbage is the leaf of choice. Here is a typical Serbian sarma recipe.  The summer ones are a lot lighter, leafy greens are used, and since there is no sourness of fermented cabbage, we eat them with a little bit of sour cream or yogurt. But they all follow the same basic mechanism of making sarmas.  Although a bit tedious to make, this can be a nice creative and tasty weekend activity.

INGREDIENTS:

1lb ground pork

about 20 leaves of Swiss chard

1 leek

1 shallot

5-6 garlic cloves

1 carrot

5-6 tablespoons of oil

Salt, pepper and paprika to taste

Sour cream or yogurt

1 cup rice

Swiss chard is a very productive and easy to grow cool season crop. I planted it last winter and it's been producing all through summer, which is great. If you don't have your own chard, you can get it at your local farmers market or grocery store.

First – put the rice to cook as this will take a while, especially if you're using brown rice. It doesn't have to be cooked all the way because it'll continue cooking in the rolls.

Wash the chard leaves on both sides and cut off the excess stems.

Cut up garlic, shallots and leak and sauté on medium heat.

Grate carrot and add to the pan.  At this time you can add other vegetables such as zucchini or eggplant if you want to have higher vegetable content.

Add ground pork and seasoning.

Mix the meat well and break up the clumps.

While the meet is sautéing, cook the chard leaves in the pot with about 1 inch of water. You just need to soften them up to gain some flexibility to be able to roll. They are too brittle when they're fresh.

You don't have to cook them too much. When they wilt and look like this you're done:

Take the chard leaves out of water and place on a plate.

Add half cooked rice to the meet.  I am using brown rice here which gives it a nice texture.

Mix well. Taste it to see if you need to add any more salt at this point. Turn off the burner, and now you're ready to roll, literally.

Preheat the oven to 450 F. Let it heat up while you roll sarmice.

Be gentle with the leaves because they're very fragile and they can break easily. If they do break, don't worry about it they are still very usable. Depending on the size of the leaf, place one or two spoons of meat and rice mixture on the leaf and roll it up folding the sides to prevent the fill from falling out. It will take a few to perfect your rolling technique.

As you roll sarmas place them in the oven safe dish.  If you have any leaves left over, cover your sarmicas with them.  They will cook nice and add flavor.  Whether you have left over leaves or not just depends on how much fill you put in.  

Rinse the pan with a little bit a water and add it to the baking dish with sarmas. Fill enough water to almost cover them.  Covered the baking dish and bake for about 30 minutes. Here I am using the oven time to bake some fresh bread as well.

Uncover the baking dish and continue baking for another 10 minutes or so to allow the water to reduce, but don't let it dry out completely. You want to keep a little bit of juice.

Carefully take sarmice out and serve (there are very fragile and after all of this work you don't want to break them now).  Serve with yogurt or sour cream and bread on the side.

I posted a very similar recipe several years ago where the meat used was ground beef and leaves were collard greens.  Please visit my friend Natasha's delicious creation here.

Meatballs

I make my own bread.  Not many things come close to freshly made bread, but as all good things out there, home made bread doesn't stay fresh for long.  If not eaten within a couple of days, its just not the same anymore, and then it can be used for french toast or other dishes where the bread is cooked.  You don't want to throw away bread that you put your heart and sole in.  With a little more effort, it can be transformed into another great meal.  

On one such occasion I had some leftover bread, so I decided to make bread crumbs with it.  I cut it up in slices and left it on a paper towel to dry.  The drying time will depend on your local climate and humidity.  Here in California, it takes about 3-4 days for bread slices to dry.  Once it was completely hardened, I used food processor to chop it up.  Home made bread crumbs from a home made bread.

Now I just needed a dish that requires bread crumbs.  I settled for meatballs.  Why not.

Below is the list of ingredients I used.  You can modify quantities of the main ingredients, and add or take away spices to your liking.

1 lb ground bison (beef will also do)

1 lb ground pork 

2 eggs

1 cup bread crumbs from the prologue

1 cup milk

1 cup finely chopped onions

1/4 cup shopped parsley and fresh oregano

1 cup parmesan cheese

3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

seasoning: salt and pepper to taste, a pinch of turmeric (it's healthy so I try to put it in anything I can)

oil (I used avocado oil, but any kind of cooking oil will do)

First, I seasoned the meat and decided to try mixing it in the Kitchen Aid mixer.  It worked well.  Still, you need to get your hands dirty a bit later, but this buys you some time.

While the meat is being mixed, combine the breadcrumbs with milk and let them soak.  

Pick some fresh oregano from the garden.

Chop onion, garlic, oregano and parsley, scramble the eggs, and shred the parmesan cheese. 

Mix in eggs first, then the rest of the ingredients.  I used the lowest setting for mixing.  It is not necessary to mix any faster.  

Once you have a homogeneous mixture, as much as meat and chopped veggie mix goes, you can start shaping meatballs.  The meat will stick to your hands, so when I do this I keep a bowl with water and wet my hands for each meatball.  It really helps with sticking. 

Here they are.  All of them.

Heat up the oil in the pan and fry the meatballs.  On all sides.  

At this point you can choose to pack some meatballs away and freeze them for later.  A great way to make two meals at the same time and at the cost of only one mess.

I added tomato sauce to the remaining meatballs for the immediate meatball experience.

Cook some spaghetti and pour the wine, and- dinner is served!