The Romanian traditional dish SARMALE seems to be of Turkish or Otoman origin. Though not exact, an English translation would be something like

Basically it is a food dish made from sour or sometimes also regular cabbage ,cabbage leaves filled with rice or meat mixture.

 

 HERE WE GO

-1 sour-cabbage [crut]: made from fresh cabbage in salt water.... after some days, if it is the right temperature [late autumn - not too cold yet], the special fermentation will take place and there you have it, sour taste of cabbage and a sour juice which must all the time cover the cabbage in, used also in some diseases [diabetics] - be careful to have soft cabbage, not with big nervures on the leaves, as this might not let you have nice rolls from the leaves;

-2 tablespoons of rice;

- ~750grams of pork meat: basically, but can be used with success also chicken, turkey meat, beef or even rabbit or fish;

-thyme and other spice and aromated plants [dill, pepper, daphne-leaves] ;

-water as much as to permit boiling, salt;

-tomatoes [optional] or tomato sauce/tomatopaste;

-sunflower oil or lard [or healthier extra virgin olive oil];

-onions or garlic, if you like it;

-some bread slices;

***you can use also regular cabbage, but it has to be first of all you must keep the cabage in hot sour juice for some minutes and use at boiling the same sour juice instead of water (juice so-called "bors" [borsh] )

 

1. Grind the meat together with onions, garlic and in the end, with the bread (helps cleaning and absorbs the extra meat-juice if any);

2. With the meat grinded prepare a mixture with the thyme, rice, pepper, salt only as you like it and if nedeed, water as 200ml for 100g rice if your meat is not much fat in or 150ml for 100g rice if your meat has more fat - this water helps the rice in to boil; after we mix very well, you must have a soft cream-like composition;

3. Wash the cabbage and slice it in order to obtain its leaves unharmed, for the size of a big palm (if it is too sour or salty, you might want to keep the cabbage for some minutes in water before all this); it might be sufficient to slice the cabbage in two parts and cutout its core and than take leaf by leaf out;

4. Place one leaf on your palm or on the table, take some meat and put it in the middle of the leaf, in order to be able to roll it without having the meat out of it; roll it and leave some free leaf at the both ends of the roll and than stuff those ends inside the roll, so you can be sure that the meat won't come out from the ends during the boiling process.

5. Use a large pot to boil in; put one layer of rolls in, than a layer of soft chopped cabbage and thin slices of tomatoes [this tomato job is optional]; the top layer must be of tomato slices ortomato sauce or soemthing similar; pour water as to permit boiling [about half the height, it will come together with the meat juice boiling]; add some lard or oil if you like; don't leave any spaces between the rolls

6. In the end, move with some circular horizontal gesture the pot to assure that all quantity is not sticking with the pot, if it is sticked, add some more water (when you have the right move, the whole mass of cabbage and rolls will move like one piece when you bang the pot round on the horizontal);

7. Simmer on top of the cooking machine for about 30 minutes and than inside the oven with medium fire to have the liquid reduced; you might taste to see if it is boiled, if not add little water and boil further; in the end might look a little bit dried out, but only on the outside;

8. Serve hot, with sour-cream and hominy [corn flour boiled with water and some saltuntil you obtain a compact mass of boiled corn, more or less soft, as you like it - but at least the consistency of a fat sour-cream];

There are some variations, but you can play with ingredients as long as you keep the basics: cabbage, meat, rice...

The best way to boil would be traditionally: special clay pots, big ones, it is said to give a special "flavour" [as attached pics]; also notice that almost in all cases the flavour would be slightly different from one cook to another as I myself noticed (probablly because of some ingredients left to the taste of each one - spice, the way the cabbage was made, meat sources etc.