Today I will travel you to the tastes of the East: Stuffed vine leaves with herbs, lemon zest and rise!

The location of my country explains its influences both from the East and the West. The East, and especially the Ottoman Empire effects, has enriched our cuisine with lots of spices and flavours from the Orient. Here is a dish I made this weekend, in an effort to re-invent my grandmother’s recipe; so, with the kind tips of my boyfriend, here it is!

The original name of this food is Dolma. It is a dish that you enjoy eating as it is actually chunks of full flavour and taste that burst into your mouth! I think of it as a super easy food, nutritious, vegetarian and seasonal.

Let’s start then!

Ingredients: 1 big cup of chopped dill, 1 big cup of chopped parsley, 2 big onions, 5 chopped scallions, 2 cups of white wine, 1 ½ ltr of vegetable broth, rise, 2 lemons (o/w the one’s used for zest), 1 ½ cup of oil, 1 small tbsp of Dijon mustard, 1 tbsp of corn flour, salt and pepper. In order to make 50 stuffed vine leaves, I put 15 big tbsp of rise (half full). Also, the amount of herbs is somehow dependent on your tastes. If you put less, you should increase the amount of rise.
I would add to this recipe ½ cup of pine nuts, which I think that would make a nice twist.
Dolmas can be accompanied with a super easy, vivid, yogurt sauce made of: Greek goat’s yogurt, a little dill, paprika, 1 tbsp of oil, 1 small tbsp of vinegar, salt (optional).

To begin with, we chop our two big onions and place them in our pan with half a cup of olive oil, in high temperature. We add our herbs and lower the temperature. We stir. We add our rise, salt and pepper, the lemon zest and we keep stirring for 5’. We then add the wine. For the next 15’ we add slowly 0.5ltr of vegetable broth. If we chose so, we add the pine nuts. Now our mixture should be a bit watery. We remove the pan from the fire and let it rest for 5’.

We start preparing to roll our vine leaves. We place ½ - 1 spoon of filling to each one, depending on the size of the leaf. We place them in a deep pot and cover them with a plate. We pour the vegetable broth, ½ cup of oil, a couple of lemon slices for aroma and let it boil in a slow heat, covered, for 1 ½ hour. If needed, we add water or extra vegetable broth.

When our dolmas are done, we take 1 cup of the pot’s juices, we add 1tbsp of corn flour, 1 lemon juice, ½ cup of oil, 1 spoon of dijon mustard and stir them together. We pour the mixture into the pot of dolmas and wiggle the pot so that the mixture can cover all the dolmas.

Optional: I created a sauce of yogurt, because it gives a sense of lightness to the dish. I just combined Greek goat’s yogurt, paprika (if you like chilli food!), dill, 1 small tbsp of vinegar, salt (optional). Enjoy!