“Before Isis, I had never left Mosul – it is where I grew up, found my husband and started a family,” says Shahed Hasan.
“Mosul was very unstable after the war with Islamic State. We lost many friends. We wanted a better future for our two young sons. My husband (Mosab Jasim) was born in Dublin, so he held an Irish passport.”
The family moved to Boyle, Co Roscommon, in 2019, but love for her homeland still pulls at Shahed’s heartstrings.
“I chose dolma because every Friday in Mosul all families gather to eat it. Dolma reminds me of home.”
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Dolma (serves six)
Preparation time: 30 mins
Cooking time: 1 hour 30 mins
Ingredients
- 2 cups of white rice
- 225g of grape leaves (vine leaves)
- 2 tsp black pepper
- 4 tsp salt
- 500g beef mince
- 4 rib steaks (500g)
- 3-4 onions
- 2 tomatoes
- 2 peppers
- 2 courgettes
- 1 aubergine
- 3 garlic cloves
- 4 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 lemon
Method
- Rinse the rice well to get rid of excess starch, then soak it for 20 minutes. Peel onions, setting aside the outer layers. Cut the aubergine and scoop out the filling and do the same with the courgette. Set aside the aubergine filling.
- Next, dice the inner onion, courgette, garlic cloves and one tomato. Mix this in a bowl with the rice, 3 tbsp of tomato paste, 4 tsp of salt and the black pepper. Add a couple of squeezes of lemon juice. This is the dolma mix.
- Sear the rib steaks on both sides then put them on the bottom of the pot with the aubergine filling. The mixture is used to fill and stuff the onion peels, courgettes, one tomato and the aubergine.
- The rest of the mixture is wrapped in grape leaf rolls. For the grape leaves, place a spoon of filling in the bottom half of the leaf, fold in sides and roll the filled portion of the leaf, like a sausage until sealed.
- Put all the stuffed vegetables into the pot carefully. Mix hot water with 1 tbsp of tomato paste, 1 tsp of salt and a squeeze of lemon juice to cover all the contents of the pot. Put a lid on the pot and then turn your hob to medium heat and cook for one hour. For the final 30 minutes reduce to a low heat.
Recipe taken from Food Without Borders: Home Cooking From Ordinary People with Extraordinary Stories (Tusla Education Support Service)
