Yaprak Sarma in the UK: what it is, how to order it, where to find it

What yaprak sarma is

Fresh or brined vine leaves are blanched, laid flat, and a spoonful of half-cooked rice filling is rolled inside each one, tucking in the sides so the roll is tight and slim. The rolls are packed into a pan in layers, weighted with a plate, covered with olive oil, lemon juice and water, and simmered until the rice is cooked and the leaves are tender. They are cooled in the pan and served cold with lemon and, often, yoghurt. The filling for the cold version has no meat; the hot version, etli yaprak sarma, has minced lamb and is served warm with yoghurt. Turkish sarma are smaller and thinner than Greek dolmades and use more herbs and less dill.

What makes them good

The leaves should be tender, not tough or fibrous, which depends on using young leaves and cooking them long enough. The rolls should be tight and uniform, the size of a little finger. The rice should be cooked through, moist with oil and sharp with lemon, sweet with currants. The best are made by someone's mother in the restaurant kitchen; the worst come from a tin and taste of brine. Turkish Cypriot restaurants in North London are proud of theirs and it is worth asking whether they are made in house.

How to eat them

As a cold meze with lemon and bread, or as part of a mixed cold plate. A few at the start of a meal is the intention; a full plate makes a light lunch with yoghurt. They keep for days in the fridge and are sold by weight from Turkish delis, which is the practical way to eat them at home unless you have an afternoon to roll them.

Where in the UK it is done well

The Turkish Cypriot restaurants of Haringey, Enfield and Barnet, and the meze houses of Dalston and Islington, roll their own. Turkish delis in Harringay and Edmonton sell hand-rolled sarma by weight. The ranking below counts restaurants in our directory whose name signals sarma or meze.