As those who know me know, I am in a serious relationship with Mediterranean or Sephardi foods. When we lived in the States there were one or two Israeli restaurants we frequented but they didn’t have anything terribly exotic there since at the time, American palates were pretty untrained and into much blander foods. This, of course, has changed drastically but we were only introduced to some of my favorite foods once we moved to Israel.

I plunged headlong into tasting and trying out these delicacies until one day DH said a little irritably, do you remember you’re Ashkenazi? This was hilarious to me however, I understood he was missing some tried and true foods of his youth (and mine). So I’ve learned to alternate between cuisines, fairly successfully. My kids remember me making these in their youth as well and it’s been awhile and I had a craving. So I share with you my (slightly Ashkenized) version. By this I simply mean I go lighter on the spices but you can up them if you so choose.

In our old apartment, I had grape vines and I actually would pluck the leaves and clean and use them but no longer and frankly, it’s easier to purchase them brined in a jar. Fair warning, the leaves are salty (brined, after all) and so you must soak and swish and drain them. I finally found a rather large jar so I give you a recipe to fill the amount I had but if you wish to halve the recipe you certainly may do so. Just know these are so delicious, they are worth the effort.

As you can see they are tightly packed in there. Wriggle them loose after spilling out the liquid, carefully.

This is how they look removed from jar, tightly rolled up. There are more than 60 leaves here although bunched together. Unroll them and fill the bowl they are in with cool water.

Let them swim in the water and soak about 20 minutes. While they soak, prepare the rice. Put your rice into another bowl and generously cover by at least 2-3 inches with boiling water. The rice will also soak for 20 minutes so do this one after the other so they will be ready together.

If the water turns a milky color as above, no worries, that’s fine. The purpose of doing this is to basically par-boil the rice without actually cooking it on a stove. This way you needn’t cook partway and cool and worry if you overcook it. And after 20 minutes, lo and behold yup yup it’s partially cooked, et voila’! So drain well. Also drain your grape leaves, set aside.

The rice has slightly mounded up in the bowl, excellent. Add to the rice the ground beef, spices, chopped garlic, sauteed onion and chopped parsley. Mix the whole lot very well together. A note about the spices. They are not “hot” spicy – you are using cinnamon, allspice and cumin and this might sound like a strange combo but I haven’t steered you wrong yet, trust me, amazing. You can up the level by adding more spice but I had Ashkenazi company so I downlowed the spice level.

K.

Now mix with the rice very well.

Okay, it’s fine to let the mixture sit a bit. Now get the grape leaves lined up as best you can to enable you to sorta assembly line the ingredients but first line your cooking pot so the stuffed leaves won’t stick and scorch cuz that’d be a shame.

You can use bits and shreds till you completely cover the bottom (which I didn’t in the pic but you get the drift). Some people add slices of tomato to this but DH isn’t a fan so I skipped this. Now you put them in the pot rolled up but no liquid goes in till you’re done. Take a pot that leaves room for expansion of the leaves.

Onward. Clear a surface and line with foil or parchment paper and lay out as many leaves as you can in rows. Now don’t double up the leaves, I know it’s a pain to peel them off one another, but do it anyway or the finished version will be a bit tough and after all this, why? So don’t do it. K. Now I’m showing you a series of pics of rolling the grape leaves around the filling for clarity’s sake. Here goes.

What’s nice here is they already cut the stems off for me, one less thing to do. Since these leaves were rather large, I used about a tablespoon of filling. For smaller leaves use a mounded teaspoon. Remember the rice will still swell so don’t overstuff.

And keep rolling till a neat packet is formed and very gently squeeze to stay put- not hard or the filling will pop out.

Excellent. Finish stuffing and rolling the leaves till you’ve done them all. Now carefully place them in neat rows in your leaf lined pot.

You can tuck extra garlic cloves in there if you like. Now drizzle the lemon juice and olive oil over the stuffed leaves and get a plate (yes, yes) with which you will weigh down the leaves so they don’t unroll mid-cooking (wouldn’t that be ghastly?) and fill the pot with water to just cover the leaves.

Very gently bring to a simmer (not a boil, don’t want them to burst) and cover the pot with a lid and cook for about 40 minutes, peek at them to check the water level, add a bit more if it’s dissipated and continue cooking till they are tender about 15- 20 minutes more. Turn off the fire under the pot and let rest about 30 minutes. Serve hot or cold.

Stuffed Grape Leaves

620 grams (approx. 21 ounces) jarred grape leaves
1 1/2 cups rice ( I used jasmine)
1 kilo (2.2 pounds) ground beef
1/2-1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2-1 teaspoon allspice
1/2-1 teaspoon cumin
pinch black pepper
1 peeled chopped onion sautéed in 2 tablespoons oil till light brown
2 peeled crushed cloves garlic plus a few peeled whole cloves garlic
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
2-4 tablespoons lemon juice
3-4 tablespoons olive oil

Directions:

Start by draining your grape leaves and carefully removing from the jar. Unroll them and place in a bowl and cover with cool water, swishing them around a bit and let them sit for about 20 minutes. Now take your rice and place in another bowl and cover with boiling water a few inches above the rice and let soak for 20 minutes. Drain the rice well. Drain the grape leaves well. Prepare your pot by taking a pot that leaves room for expansion of the stuffed leaves, and using some of the less perfect leaves, line the bottom of the pot to prevent the stuffed leaves from scorching. Now in the bowl with the drained rice (you will see it expands somewhat from the soaking) add the ground beef, cinnamon, allspice, cumin, pepper, sauteed onion, crushed garlic and chopped parsley. Mix very thoroughly together. Now try to make an assembly line of the grape leaves and the meat mixture to ease the prep and with the bottom of the leaf facing you put a tablespoon of filling in a large leaf and a teaspoon of filling in small ones since the rice will still expand. Roll from the bottom to cover, turn in the sides of the leaf and roll closed tightly. Gently (!!) squeeze a bit to make sure they don’t unroll. Place the finished leaves in lines throwing in the whole garlic cloves here and there in the the lined pot making sure there’s enough room for expansion. Sprinkle the olive oil and lemon juice over all. Cover with an upside down plate (yup right on the stuffed leaves) to hold them down so they don’t unroll. Fill with water to just cover leaves.

Very gently bring to a simmer (not a boil, don’t want them to burst) and cover the pot with a lid and cook for about 40 minutes, peek at them to check the water level, add a bit more if it’s dissipated and continue cooking till they are tender about 15- 20 minutes more. Turn off the fire under the pot and let rest about 30 minutes. Serve hot or cold.