Dolmades

Ingredients

300 g of vine tree leaves (this roughly corresponds to 50–60 leaves), fresh or in brine
2 cups (400 g) of uncooked non-aromatic short-grain fluffy rice, such as Carolina
500 gm beef mince
500 gm Pork mince
4 small pork or lamb peaces of meat
4 large white or brown onions
1 can diced tomatoes
3Tbs tomato paste
1/2 cup of extra-virgin olive oil
1/2stick of butter
Salt and freshly-ground black pepper to taste
For the egg and lemon sauce
the juice of 1 medium lemon
2 eggs

 

How to prepare the vine tree leaves

For those of you using vine leaves in brine, rinse well your leaves and let the water drain. You are ready to go on with the preparation of the stuffing.
For the ones that have collected fresh leaves, here is the procedure that needs to be followed. Wash your vine tree leaves thoroughly. Place a large saucepan over high heat, fill it to up to 2/3 of its volume with water, cover and let boil. Once it comes to the boil, briefly blanch the leaves by immersing them in the water for approximately 2–3 minutes. The blanching time will depend on the age of your leaves; younger leaves require shorter blanching compared to older and harder leaves. Remove leaves from the boiling water using a slotted ladle and place them in a colander to drain. Let the leaves cool down to room temperature. You are ready to go!

At this point you may go on with the stuffing procedure or you may wrap the vine tree leaves in alluminium foil, put in a food bag and store in the freezer for future use. To make Dolmades, take the leaves out of the freezer and let them slowly reach room temperature. Carefully separate them and stuff them. This way, you can collect and store enough leaves for one year’s Dolmades.

 

How to prepare the stuffing

In a bowl place mince, diced onions can tomatoes rice tomato paste 1/4 cup of olive oil salt pepper and mix with your hands until all ingredients are well combine taste for salt
How to stuff and roll the Dolmades
Lay one vine leaf flat on your palm with the nerves facing up.
Add a little stuffing (approximately as much as one teaspoon).
Fold one lobe of the vine leaf over the stuffing.
Fold the second lobe towards the centre of the leaf.
Fold the two sides towards the centre and roll. Repeat until you roll all your leaves.
Cooking and serving our Dolmades
Place the pork or lamb meat at the bottom of a large deep,saucepan then pile the Dolmades over the meat in layers as shown in the next photo. You will probably have to stack them in 2-3 layers, depending on the diameter of your saucepan, but Add the remaining olive oil and butter
Cover with a heavy plate that can tolerate high heat (e.g. porcelain), to prevent the Dolmades from unrolling. If you omit this step, the rice will expand and unroll the Dolmades, and you will end up with a nice vine tree leaf risotto instead! Still tasty, but not quite what you were looking for really!
Add cool water to cover the layers of Dolmades and the plate. Cook over medium heat for 40–45 minutes. Check at times and add a little more water, if necessary. For this you would have to use hot water to avoid a big drop in the temperature, which could result in the rice becoming too soft.
When the stuffed vine leaves are done you may want to make the egg and lemon sauce and pore it over the top of vine leaves in the saucepan or serve them with Greek Yogurt or Sanziki
How To make sauce egg and lemon sauce
In a blender put the 2 eggs the mice of a whole lemon and some of the cravy from the cooked vine leaves ad abut of salt and opener and beat until it becomes white and fluffy then poor over vine leaves.

Serve your delicious Dolmades warm or cold. You may season with extra lemon juice, if you wish. Enjoy!