Lahanodolmades avgolemono

The story

Lahanodolmades are Greek cabbage rolls: blanched cabbage leaves wrapped around ground meat and rice, simmered in a covered pot and finished with avgolemono, the sauce whose Greek name simply means egg-lemon. The name joins lahano, cabbage, with dolmades, the word Greeks use for stuffed leaves. Wrapping food in leaves has a long history in the region. Ancient Greeks used tender fig leaves called thrion, and Byzantine recipes for stuffed vine leaves are seen as the direct ancestors of modern dolmades. Across the Balkans the cabbage version became cold-weather food; in Bulgaria cabbage sarma is eaten in winter and vine-leaf sarma in spring and summer. In Greece, too, the cabbage rolls are especially popular in winter. The filling varies, with rice, ground meat or both, seasoned with onion, parsley and sometimes mint. Avgolemono has its own past: food historians trace it to agristada, the egg sauce Sephardic Jews made in Iberia before their expulsion from Spain, and Greek cooks also pour it over warm dolmades, artichokes and roast meats. Plan an unhurried afternoon for rolling, and serve the rolls in shallow bowls with bread for the sauce and a simple green salad.