Vegetarian Liver Sarma

The dish, Vegetarian Sarma, is one that my mom relatively recently decided to start making, but is nonetheless one of my favorite dishes. She told me that they used to make this at her work cafeteria in Bulgaria, and she had just recently had an urge to make it. At first, I was a little skeptical because how can you have a vegetarian liver dish? Basically, there is a similar dish that does call for liver, but because not everyone eats liver, the dish was made vegetarian, but kept the same name. A bit confusing, but it’s kind of like we now how vegan ice cream. Ice cream itself isn’t vegan, but they use vegan ingredients to make it. Typically, the food “sarma” comes from a filling made from minced meat and rice that is used to stuff cabbage or grape leaves, but in this case, the filling isn’t actually filling anything. Instead, it’s just in a pan.

Learning that it had no liver in it, I tried the dish, and decided to make it for this week’s  blog. The Bulgarian website that the recipe is from can be found here.

Ingredients:

For the rice:

• 10.5 ounces rice
• 10.5 ounces mushrooms
• 1.6 quarts of boiling water
• 7 ounces spinach
• 0.7 ounces butter
• 1 bundle green onion
• 3 cloves garlic
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 0.5 tablespoons black pepper

For the covering

• 12 ounces yogurt
• 3.5 ounces cheese of your choice (mozzarella, provolone, jack, etc)
• 4 eggs
• 1 tablespoon flour
• 0.5 tablespoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit 
2. Boil the rice
3. Saute the vegetables in the olive oil, butter, and garlic, and then pour some water in it and let simmer for a little on low heat. Add salt, pepper, and other spices to taste.
4. Put rice in pan and mix the vegetables and the rice together.
5. Pour the rice and vegetable mix into a baking dish and put in the oven to bake for around 10 minutes.
6. Prepare the covering mix by combining all ingredients and mixing them well. Season to taste.
7. Take the dish out of the oven and pour the mix on top.
8. let cook for around 15 more minutes

Final Product

Ratings and Thoughts

Ratings

Complexity (1 being easy/5 being hard): ♥♥

Time (1 being fast/5 being time consuming): ♥♥

Taste (1 being the worst/5 being the best): ♥♥♥♥♥

Would Recommend (1 being a hard no/5 being totally): ♥♥♥♥

Thoughts

Although this is one of my favorite foods, I do know that a lot of people do love eating meat and they also aren’t the biggest fan of rice. That’s’ why my recommendation is only four hearts this time instead of five. However, if you’re a person who does enjoy rice and doesn’t eat or doesn’t mind not eating meat, this is a great dish. It is relatively easy to make, the ingredients aren’t hard to find, and it doesn’t take too much time either. This dish can also be made vegan if you skip the butter and the covering mix. Instead, add more vegetables, like peppers and carrots, or use vegan dairy products.