How To Prepare Grape Leaves For Dolmades (Ampelofylla Yia Ntolmades) - Greek Recipes

	How To Prepare Grape Leaves For Dolmades (Ampelofylla Yia Ntolmades) It’s grape leaf time! Late spring wherever you are is the time to harvest grape leaves for cooking, most especially for making dolmades. I usually forget to do this until the grape vines are going all over the place and need some trimming. As you can see, I brought an armload into the kitchen, but I won’t be using all these leaves. We use only the more tender leaves on the last couple of feet of each vine. Use scissors to snip each usable leaf off the vine, cutting the stem flush with the leaf. What do I mean by “usable”? We want the leaves to be young and tender, yet big enough to roll around a blob of filling. The palm of your hand is the ideal size. Take a look at the leaves below. The column of leaves furthest to the left are pretty small. They’ll make lovely fancy dolmadakia, but they’ll slow you down because you’ll have to do more and fussier rolling of leaves around filling. The two middle columns of leaves are perfect. The two big leaves in the rightmost column are too tough for stuffing, but I won’t throw them away because I can use them to line the pan when I make the dolmades. Rinse the leaves in a sink full of water and drain them, then repeat. Make a stack of approximately 25 leaves. Roll the stack up… …and then tie it with string or sewing thread. Here’s what I got for that huge armload of vines. Dip each bundle in boiling salted water and remove it right away. Let them cool. Put the bundles in plastic and freeze. You can actually use them right away, if you have the energy. I never do! This is the method I learned from Mama, but there are other methods for preserving grape leaves. Nancy Gaifyllia at About.com gives a variety of techniques for grape leaves. Check out her article starting with fresh grape leaves. 37 Comments » Comment by Sam Sotiropoulos Lulu, I am sure many will appreciate this offering! Good work. I especially liked your detailed methodology. A true delight to read, good posting. Comment by Laurie Constantino I’m envious of people with access to grape vines. We always bring some dry-packed ones in nice, sturdy coke bottles home with us from Greece, but other than that I have to make do with jars from the supermarket. The flavor of your frozen ones is so much better. Good for you that you take the time to do it! Comment by lulu Hey, Sam, thanks! My hope is that someone who’s never done this before could follow these instructions. Comment by lulu Laurie, I know what you mean, I kept having to scroll down to your snow pictures to avoid being envious of your lush spring greenery. Every climate has its pros and cons. That said, I totally understand that if you want to do Mediterranean cooking, then a Mediterranean climate is the best, especially for us foragers. Hence my admiration for the whole premise of your blog! Interesting you should mention the dry-packed leaves. That was the method that most intrigued me over on Nancy’s site. I’d love to try it but I don’t understand why the leaves don’t get moldy. Comment by Cheryl I’m your someone who’s never done it before! I have tons of leaves and I want to preserve them. I have other people that I could ask but I’d rather learn on my own and surprise everyone after it’s done.I’ll let you know how it turns out. Thanks for the great, timely post! Comment by Bellini We should be able to harvest our grape leaves soon here in the valley. There are only a handful of places..in fact maybe one..that sell them in their produce department from the wineries. Comment by Laurie Constantino I don’t know why they don’t get moldy, but they don’t. I’ve used them up to a year later and they are fine - but like Nancy says, once you open the bottle you have to use them all up right away. It’s a mystery, but it works. Trust the yiayias. Comment by ivy Great job Lulu. That’s how I preserve them as well. I only roll them in cling film, after they are washed and dried and put them in the freezer without boiling. I boil them after thawing them. I have shown this in my blog some months back. Comment by lulu Cheryl, I’m thrilled to hear that you’re going to give it a try using this! They’ll be great, there’s really no way to mess them up. Comment by lulu Do you have any access to grape vines, Val? Too bad I can’t send you Mama, she’s realy good at “foraging” other people’s plants if she doesn’t think they’re going to put them to good use! Going for walks with her can get a little embarrassing sometimes. Comment by lulu Ivy, I noticed that was one of the methods Nancy mentioned. I did actually look at Kopiaste to see if you had an article to link to about this, but I didn’t find one. I was pretty tired at the time though, that’s probably why I missed it. Comment by Ricki Wow, Lulu, that is so impressive! One of these days I’m going to have to try authentic, rolled dolmades! Thanks so much for stopping by my blog–it is much appreciated. (And hope you enjoy the “lazy” version that I posted!) Comment by lulu I’m definitely going to try them, Ricki! Welcome! Comment by FoodJunkie I usually have others prepare them for me. Now that you showed me how, I cannot pretend I don’t know any more.. DAMN! Comment by lulu LOL, FoodJunkie! Comment by James I never reaised they were so easy. It’s one of those things I keep pushing to the back of the to-try list. But my friend has vine leaves in her garden, so it’s worth a try. And I really love dolmades. Thanks for the comment too. Just finished a two week blitz of work. 460 people in 2 weeks, so no time left for blogging. Will be posting photos from a weeks cooking in Cornwall soon though….. Comment by lulu Hi James, I figured it was something like that. Glad to hear everything’s good with you and I’ll look forward very much to the pictures from Cornwall. Comment by Bellini Valli It should be about time that we are able to get fresh Spring leaves locally. You asked about wrapping the chicken breast in grape leaves on my site. I have only ever used the brined leaves which have a lot of moisture in them. In that case I would imagine you might need to blanch fresh leaves to get as much moisture into the chicken as possible. I am only guessing..the best thing is experimentation:D Comment by kat That was a great post. I like the fact you use all the leaves and don’t waste the big or little ones. To be honest, when I was in the USA, I always bought the ones in jars or just went to Greek festivals, and now I don’t make dolmadakia because my future MIL makes them for me (I’m the only one who eats them). I also never realized it was relatively easy…or maybe you just make it look easy. I’ll remember to come back here when we move out of the country and return to making my own. Comment by lulu @18 Val, good point. I’ll definitely experiment! @19 Kat, prepping the leaves is easy, a lot easier than rolling up two hundred bazillion dolmadakia! The leaves tend to sit in my freezer for a long time before I get up the energy for that. Comment by maria verivaki those little bundles look beautiful! Comment by lulu Hi Maria! I just like to admire them and not go to the work of making filling and rolling them! Comment by Kevin Preparing your own vine leaves sounds like fun. Kevin’s last blog post..Jamaican Jerk Chicken Comment by Lulu Hi Kevin, welcome! It is fun! Comment by petey I am so making these this summer. I can’t wait. Comment by Lulu Let me know how it goes, Petey. Pingback by Dolmas (Stuffed Grape Leaves) « A Mad Tea Party [...] You can use grape leaves preserved in brine or grow a vine like me! You can even freeze leaves for later use. Pick leaves that are large yet tender. You will need a few extra to line the cooking pot. Here Lulu shows you how you can prepare your own leaves! [...] Comment by Anonymous HI! Thanks for the info. I have a couple of questions? 1) Some methods suggest blanching a dozen in boiled water and then emerging in cold water and then drying and freezing. Others suggest putting all in a big pan and then in cold water. There is also another method where you only boil and then dry and freeze. Now here is my question. What differences do these methods make; which one is best to use? 2) How can I plant my own grape vines? Thanks again Comment by Lulu Hi Anonymous, I too am learning that people use lots of different methods for preparing grape leaves. I’ve only tried Mama’s method (the one I described) so I don’t really know how the different methods affect the leaves. To plant a grape vine I would just buy one at a nursery. Dig a hole, and pop’er in. I don’t think they’re super fussy, unless you’re trying to grow fine wine grapes. Comment by dolores Hello my names is dolores and i’am so delighted to read all of your comments regarding grape leaves I have been liveing in a house for 10 yrs and went behind the garage and found these big and sweet green grape i’am sure the vines never been treated, at least for 10 yrs so i have been looking for answers for prepareing grape leaves for stuffing’s this was the only one site and i have been looking for months thankyou Pingback by Vine leaves Grow Your Own - Growing, How To Grow Tomatoes Growing Fruit & Veg - Recipe Advice, Organic food Gardening, Chickens, Seeds for Sale [...] a while back and had great plans for using my own vine leaves - then OH tells me he hates them!! How To Prepare Grape Leaves For Dolmades (Ampelofylla Yia Ntolmades) - Greek Recipes __________________ Life is too short for drama & petty things! So laugh insanely, love truly [...] Comment by Lulu Hi Dolores, my pleasure! May you make delicious stuffed grape leaves! Comment by Reggie ive only tasted domades once. and its was kind of sour.. and it was from a jar from the supermarket.. they seemed oily and bitter.. and i really loved that fact!! will they be like this too, when you make them like you do? Comment by Lulu Hi Reggie! It depends on what you fill them with and how you cook them. But the sour/bitter flavor of the grape leaves will definitely be there. Comment by sarraceniac Wonderful advice here. I was wondering what to do with my vines. Never had the patience for wine. And the entire family likes dolmades. Comment by Lulu @33 sarraceniac: Super! I hope your dolmades please your family! Pingback by wild grape leaves? - AmityMama.com [...] sure thing…. How To Prepare Grape Leaves For Dolmades (Ampelofylla Yia Ntolmades) - Greek Recipes [...] RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI Leave a comment If you want to leave a feedback to this post or to some other user´s comment, simply fill out the form below. 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