”Sarmale” is a traditional Romanian dish of leaves (cabbage or vine leaves pickled or fresh) rolled around a filling which is based on minced meat (pork , beef , lamb , goat ,veal and sometimes goose or duck meat) and rice . In Romania ”sarmale” is a traditional meal for Christmas and other religious holidays. It is found in Turkish , Bulgarian , Serbian and other cuisines too but under the name ”sarma” which actually means  ”a wrapped thing ”from the Turkish verb  sarmak (to wrap).

Ingredients

• 
   1.6lbs - 750g - pork
• 
   8.8oz - 250g - beef

• 
  Cabbage (fresh or pickled) or vine leaves.
• 
  3-4 chopped  onions
• 
  2 chopped carrots
• 
  3.5oz - 100g - rice
• 
  ½ - 1 tablespoon salt
• 
  ½  tablespoon pepper
• 
  1-2 sprigs thyme
• 
  1 sprig dill (chopped)
• 
  1 sprig parsley (chopped)
• 
  5 tablespoon tomato juice
• 
  4-5 tablespoons  vegetable oil
• 
  Other herbs if you want .

Method

• 
  Add oil in a frying pan over medium heat along with the carrots and onions(finely chopped)  for 5 min. Remove from heat.
• 
   In a large bowl add  the ingredients from the list(meat , onions , carrots ,rice ,salt , pepper ,thyme , dill, parsley ) and mix .
• 
  Remove core from cabbage. In a pot add water and cabbage(or  vine leaves) until they  boil .
• 
  Fill in the cabbage leaves with 2 tablespoon of meat filling and roll to make a nice neat roll .
• 
  In a large pot  (in Romania best cooking method is slow boiling in large clay pots)  add some vegetable oil and cabbage leaves over.
• 
  Arrange  the rolls in layers . Layer on top of one another. Above , add another layer of cabbage leaves and spread tomato juice all over.
• 
  Now , add water to cover (should reach halfway up the pot) . Put a cover on the pot and cook at medium heat for at least  2  hours.( 2 and ½ ).

 Mention:

You “must” serve this with mamaliga¹,sour cream,hot peppers and tuica² for a true romanian dish .