Minty Dolma (stuffed grape leaves)

I love to make dolma, it is a favourite in our house... traditionally (in our kurdish culture) we make a big pot of assorted stuffed vegetables and include grape leaves. The rice stuffing also has meat, spices (just for flavour, not heat) and tomato paste but now since I'm begun making this simplified version with only garlic, fresh mint and olive oil ... and lemon juice of course.

It's a very simple and basic recipe and everyone loves it because it is an easy snack food and tastes great straight out of the fridge too.

I made a large pot here, using 1 and a 1/3 jar of leaves and close to 4 cups of rice, a big bunch of fresh mint and lots of garlic cloves. ... unfortunately I didn't have olive oil on hand this time so I opted for butter (melted it and mixed it with the rice) it had a nice flavour!

For the complete recipe you can refer to my other dolma posts here and here ... also here !

Normally the leaves are rather medium sized but this time I had almost a full jar of very large leaves which resulted in some super long dolmas if I didn't split the leaves. My mother tends to divide the leaves and make smaller ones but this time I thought I'd make thinner longer ones and it turned out quite nice, like a cigar, hehe.

Mahshi - stuffed vegetables

Sometimes the most time consuming recipes can actually be the most relaxing to make. Today I spent a fair bit of time in the kitchen, but it was all well worth it and very enjoyable.

I made " summer time grape leaves" (my summer blend is just herbs, garlic, olive oil and rice, no heavy tomato paste, meats and spices like the winter version)

Another summer version I make is using yogurt but lately

I've preferred them like this as the leaves stay fresher in the fridge this way (and they make yummy snacks all through the night)

I can serve with a mint/yogurt sauce on the side though!

A trip to the arabic grocer the other day had me hauling quite a bit of stuff home, well it's Ramadan and there are so many specials! :)

These little white eggplants were the cutest, so fresh and their skins tender and pearly, I've never cooked with them before but my mother has mentioned using them a long time ago.

I restrained myself and only got 2 because eggplants cause a throat allergy for me so I figured this would be a treat that hopefully would be ok.

I reserved less than a third of the rice blend and added fresh dill to that and then stuffed the vegetables and cooked them off in a small pot separate from the other grape leaves. I stuffed a few grape leaves with the dill mixture in the vegetable pot though :)

For photo instructions on how to roll the grape leaves refer to my older post here

Guess I don't have to cook tomorrow! And now I'll leave you with a photo sequence of putting together my mahshi dish.

Stuffing and rolling dolma