Dolmades
Dolmades, little cigar shaped vine leaves stuffed with goodness, is the best way to describe this dish. Whether you are a vegetarian or a meat eater, dolmades can be stuffed with deliciousness for anyones palate.
Ingredients
- 250g Fresh Vine leaves
- 2 large onions
- 2-3 cloves of garlic
- 2 lemons juiced
- Dill
- Parsley
- Vegetable / Chicken stock
- 250g of pork and beef mince (for the non-vegetarians)
- Salt
- Pepper
- 400g of rice
- Extra Virgin Greek olive oil
Step 1
Place a pot of water on onto your stove, and season slightly with some salt. Bring to the boil. While you are waiting for the water to boil, grab a large bowl of cold water and fill it with some ice. This will be used to stop the cooking process of the vine leaves once blanched.
Once the water has begun to boil, drop in 10-12 of vine leaves in to the pot and blanch them for 3-5 seconds (or until they change colour). Take the vine leaves out of the boiling water with a slotted spoon, and place them in to the iced water. Once chilled then move the vine leaves to a strainer to drain.
Note: If you cannot find fresh vine leaves and are using packeted ones, remove the vine leaves from their wrapping and wash thoroughly to remove all of the brine. Then set aside to drain.
Step 2
For the meat eaters, it’s time to cook your mince. First chop up some onion and garlic, and place them in to a frying pan with olive oil over a medium heat. Let them sauté for 5-8 minutes. Once they start to change colour, add in your mince. Season with some salt and pepper, and cook for 2-3 minutes. Do not cook the mince all the way through as the cooking process will be completed during the final cooking of the dolmades.
Note: Some recipes do not fry the mince, they add it raw to the rice mixture then cook. I find, that slightly frying the mince now creates more flavour.
Step 3
Now for the rice mixture. In a pot add in your onion and garlic with some olive oil. Cook for 10 minutes or until translucent and the onions shrink in volume. Add the rice and sauté for 2 minutes or until the rice starts to change colour.
Now add 1.5 cups of stock, stir, lower the heat, and simmer for 5-10 minutes with a lid on. The rice is done once all of the stock has been soaked up.
Take the pot off the heat leaving the lid on and let it sit for 10-15 minutes. This will continue the cooking process.
Step 4
As the rice is cooling, chop up all of the herbs. Once the rice has slightly cooled, add the mince (for the non vegetarians), all of your herbs, salt and pepper to the rice and mix together. I also like to add in some lemon zest at this point.
Step 5
Grab a pot (approx. 22cm) and line the bottom with 3-4 large vine leaves. This will stop the dolmades from sticking and burning to the bottom of the pot.
Cut up 4-5 slices of lemon and lay them on top of the vine leaves at the bottom of the pot. This will help with the flavours during the cooking process.
Step 6
Assembly time!
See the gallery below for images on how to roll the dolmades
- Grab your first vine leaf and place it on your cooking surface
- Make sure the raised vein side is facing you with the pointing end of the leaf facing away from you.
- Take a spoon full of the mixture and add this to the bottom centre of the vine leaf
- Now to roll. Firstly make 1 roll motion towards the tip of the vine leaf. You should be left with a cigar shaped leaf.
- Now, fold in the left and right hand side of the vine leaf inwards making a pillow like shape
- Now roll the rest of the vine leaf until you have a cigar shaped dolmade.
- Continue this process, adding each vine leaf to the pot making sure they are tightly compact.
- Once all of the dolmades have been made, add some olive oil, and a squeeze of lemon.
- Cover the dolmades with some left over vine leaves and place a plate on top of the dolmades. This will stop them from moving around and unwrapping during cooking.
- Now the final step, add some stock covering the dolmades and the plate.
- Place the pot on to the stove, bring to the boil, then reduce heat to a simmer and cook for 40-50 minutes.
- Taste test a dolmade to see if the vine leaf and the rice have cooked through. If not, add some more stock and continue to cook for another 10-20 minutes or until both the rice and vine leaf are both tender.
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