Dolmades

Ingredients

Leaves

• 60vine leaves in brine, or fresh

Filling

• 300 gshort grain rice
• 2onions, very finely chopped
• 4spring onions, sliced
• 1large bunch dill
• 1 bunchmint
• 1 bunchparsley
• 150 mlolive oil
• juice of 2 lemons
• 1 tspsalt
• black pepper

To cook

• 500 mlwater
• more olive oil
• more lemon

Directions

1. If you are using brined leaves, soak them in several changes of warm water for 20 minutes, then rinse and drain. They are heavily salted and unrinsed they will ruin the whole dish.
2. If you are using fresh leaves, blanch them for 30 seconds and refresh them in cold water.
3. Snip the stem off every leaf, because it stays woody and tears the parcel as you roll it.
4. Soften the onion in half the olive oil for 10 minutes, then stir in the rice and cook for 2 minutes.
5. Add half the lemon juice, all the herbs, the salt, pepper and 150 ml of water, and cook for 5 minutes until the rice has swollen but is still well short of done.
6. Undercook the rice deliberately. It swells again inside the leaf during the long simmer, and a fully cooked filling bursts the parcels open.
7. Lay a leaf vein side up, put a teaspoon of filling near the stem end, fold the sides in and roll it up firmly.
8. Firmly but not tightly. The rice needs room to expand, and a hard-rolled dolma splits along its seam every time.
9. Line the base of a wide pan with a few torn leaves, then pack the dolmades in tight concentric circles, seam side down.
10. Set a plate directly on top of them to weigh them down, which stops them unrolling as they cook.
11. Pour over the remaining olive oil, the rest of the lemon juice and enough water to just cover.
12. Cover and simmer very gently for 45 minutes.
13. Let them cool completely in the pan liquid, which is where most of the flavour ends up.
14. Serve cold or at room temperature with lemon and more olive oil, and never hot.

Technique

• These are the lenten, oil-based ones, eaten cold. The meat-filled version is served hot with avgolemono and is a different dish.
• Dill in quantity is what makes them read as Greek rather than generically Ottoman.
• They are better on the second day, once the oil and lemon have settled into the rice.

Substitutions

• Chard or young cabbage leaves if vine leaves are unavailable.
• Arborio or any short grain rice, which releases the starch that holds the filling together.

Variations

• With pine nuts and currants through the filling, in the Constantinopolitan manner.
• Meat-filled and served hot with an egg and lemon sauce.
• With a little tomato paste in the filling, which is common in the north.

History

Grape leaves wrapped around a filling most often built on rice, sometimes with minced meat added, generally traced through Ottoman Turkish influence, since dolma, the Turkish word for stuffed, describes a much broader Ottoman-era family of stuffed vegetable and leaf dishes that spread with the empire across the Balkans, the Middle East and North Africa from roughly the 1500s onward. Greek dolmades developed their own regional character within that wider Ottoman-influenced tradition, and a genuine debate exists among food historians over whether the technique of wrapping and cooking stuffed grape leaves originated specifically in Ottoman Turkish court kitchens or drew on earlier Greek or Byzantine practices predating Ottoman rule, a question that remains unresolved rather than clearly settled in either direction.

Frequently asked questions

What is Dolmades?

Dolmades is a snack from Greece: vine leaves stuffed with rice, herbs, lemon. Grape leaves wrapped around a filling most often built on rice, sometimes with minced meat added, generally traced through Ottoman Turkish influence, since dolma, the Turkish word for stuffed, describes a much broader Ottoman-era family of stuffed vegetable and leaf dishes that spread with the empire across the Balkans, the Middle East and North Africa from roughly the 1500s onward. Greek dolmades developed their own regional character within that wider Ottoman-influenced tradition, and a genuine debate exists among food historians over whether the technique of wrapping and cooking stuffed grape leaves originated specifically in Ottoman Turkish court kitchens or drew on earlier Greek or Byzantine practices predating Ottoman rule, a question that remains unresolved rather than clearly settled in either direction.

How long does Dolmades take to make?

Dolmades takes 1 hr of preparation and 50 min of cooking. The recipe makes 60 dolmades. It is rated medium to make.

What can I substitute in Dolmades?

Yes, within limits. Chard or young cabbage leaves if vine leaves are unavailable. Arborio or any short grain rice, which releases the starch that holds the filling together.

What is the most important thing to get right in Dolmades?

If you are using brined leaves, soak them in several changes of warm water for 20 minutes, then rinse and drain. They are heavily salted and unrinsed they will ruin the whole dish.