Egyptian-style stuffed grape leaves

Ingredients:

• 1 jar unprepared grape leaves (prefer brands that say "Tender" on the jar)
• 3/4 lb ground beef
• 1.5 cups short-grain rice
• 2 cups water
• 1 small can tomato paste
• 1 onion
• Dill weed
• Coriander and/or cumin
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 lemon or lime + more to serve
• Salt and freshly ground pepper

Procedure:

1. Wash the rice and soak it in a lot of water (not strictly necessary but will make it need less water to cook).
2. Blanch the leaves in boiling water for a few minutes (3-4) to make them pliable enough to roll and less salty.
3. Mash the garlic in a small bowl. Add quite a bit of dill weed (maybe 1-2 Tb) and some coriander and/or cumin. Add a little bit of water and mix well to make a paste.
4. Chop the onion finely. Add it to a pot with the ground beef. Saute until the ground beef is not pink anymore. Add the garlic paste and mix well. Lower the heat, cover and cook for about 15 minutes.
5. Mix the ground beef and the drained rice. In a bowl, mix some water with 1/2 can tomato paste to make a thick liquid. Add that to the rice mixture. Add some freshly ground black pepper if you want. Be careful if you want to add salt, check that the leaves aren't already salty enough before adding anything (I generally don't need to add salt).
6. Line the bottom of a heavy pot with grape leaves.
7. Now comes the fun part. To roll the leaves, place them with the veiny side up, stem end away from you. Put some stuffing mix close to your end of the leaf. Roll the end over the stuffing, fold the sides in, then continue rolling. Roll the leaf pretty tightly. Arrange the leaves tightly in the pot. Be careful not to overcrowd the pot: you should have plenty of room left after you add liquid.
8. Mix the water and the rest of the tomato paste. Add freshly ground pepper and, if you want, the juice of one lemon. Pour the liquid into the pot (slowly). Invert a heavy plate over everything. Bring to a boil, cover tightly (you may wish to put foil underneath the lid to make the seal tighter), turn the heat to low, and cook for 50 minutes or until the rice is cooked and the leaves are tender.

Some notes:

• If you have stuffing mix left over, you can just sprinkle it over the top of the pot and cook it alongside the leaves.
• The ground beef should not be too lean, or the dish will be too dry. I generally use 85%. You can pour out some (or all) of the juices before adding in the garlic paste. You can also do that after the beef has stewed for its 15 minutes, but you risk losing some of the flavor that has built up.
• If you vary the type or quantity of rice, you must vary the amount of water you use. Generally, for short grain rice you should use 1 1/3 as much water as rice, and for long-grain rice 2 times as much. There's no harm in having more liquid in the pot than you need: you can just pour out whatever's left over. In any case, you should have enough liquid in the pan that the leaves are completely submerged once you push them down with a plate.
• If after 1h15m you find that the rice is still not cooked, your pot is probably too full. Your best bet is to put the top layer(s) of leaves in a separate pan. Add some water to cover (or, if you're courageous, some more of that water/tomato paste mixture), cook them as before. You may need to cook the second batch for another full hour.

The grape leaves are good both hot and cold. If you are planning on eating them cold, a yogurt thing to dip them in would be nice. You can mix some yogurt, lime juice, and ground cumin seeds, or you can also grate some cucumber in the yogurt. Either way, plan on using a lot of lemon juice on the leaves (maybe 1 lemon a person, but then again I really like lemon juice).

You can also look at variations on this recipe that are simpler or vegetarian.

Katia's cooking page

Katia Hayati
Last updated December 24, 2006