Vegetables hollowed and filled, or vine leaves rolled, round rice with herbs and spices and sometimes meat.
What makes it dolma
A rice filling that swells as it cooks inside.
Olive-oil versions eaten cool, with lemon; meat versions hot, with yoghurt.
Rolled or packed tight so they hold as they simmer.
Where it comes from
The name comes from the Turkish for stuffed. Strictly a dolma is filled and a sarma is wrapped, though vine-leaf rolls are called dolma nearly everywhere. Stuffed dishes were a speciality of the Ottoman palace kitchens, and they're made today from the Balkans to Iran under versions of the same word.
There are two great families. Zeytinyağlı dolma is meatless — rice cooked in olive oil with pine nuts, currants and allspice — and eaten cool with lemon; etli dolma has minced meat in the rice and is eaten hot, with yoghurt.
How it varies
Yaprak sarma
Vine leaves rolled as thin as a finger round spiced rice.
Biber dolması
Green peppers filled with rice or meat.
Dolmades
The Greek name for vine-leaf rolls, often with dill and finished with lemon or avgolemono.