Dolmades Recipe (Greek Stuffed Vine Leaves with Rice)

Dolmades take an hour of rolling and there is no way around it. It is the kind of job Greek families do together at a table while talking, which is really the only sensible way to approach it.

The version here is the vegan one, filled with rice and herbs and served cold, which Greeks call dolmadakia yialantzi. Yialantzi means liar, because they pretend to be the meat version. They are the ones that turn up on a meze table and they keep for days.

Two technical points carry the whole recipe. The rice goes in raw so it absorbs the lemon and oil as it swells, and the rolled leaves must be packed tight and weighted down with a plate, or they unroll as the rice expands and you end up with a pan of stuffing and loose leaves.

Key preparation steps

1. Blanch the leaves briefly if using fresh, or rinse well if from a jar.
2. Mix raw rice with softened onion, herbs, lemon and plenty of oil.
3. Roll tightly, tucking the sides in, seam side down.
4. Pack close in a lined pan, weight with a plate, and simmer gently.

Fresh or jarred vine leaves?

Jarred leaves in brine are what most people will use and they are perfectly good. Rinse them thoroughly under running water, ideally twice, because they carry a lot of salt that will otherwise dominate the finished dish.

Fresh leaves, if you have a vine, need blanching for about thirty seconds in boiling water until they turn olive-drab and go pliable. Pick them young, in late spring, when they are about the size of your palm.

Either way, sort them by size before you start. Large ones for rolling, small or torn ones to line the base of the pan.

Why the rice goes in raw

The same principle as gemista. Raw rice absorbs the lemon, the olive oil and the leaf's own flavour as it swells during the simmer. Pre-cooked rice cannot absorb anything and gives a filling that tastes separate from its wrapper.

Use a medium grain rice. It releases enough starch to bind the filling slightly, which helps the dolmades hold together.

Fill sparingly, about a teaspoon per leaf. The rice roughly triples and an over-filled dolma bursts along its seam.

The rolling technique

Lay the leaf shiny side down, veins facing up, with the stem end towards you. Snip off any stem. Put a teaspoon of filling in a short line near the stem end.

Fold the stem end up over the filling, then fold both sides in towards the middle, then roll away from you into a tight cigar. Tight matters: a loose roll swells and opens.

Set each one seam side down as you go. They should be about the size of your thumb.

Why weight them with a plate?

As the rice swells the dolmades push against each other and try to unroll. A heatproof plate sitting directly on top of them, inside the pan, holds everything in place for the whole simmer.

Pack them tightly in concentric circles, seam side down, in a pan lined with the torn leaves so nothing catches on the base. Two layers is fine.

Add water and lemon juice to just cover, put the plate on, and simmer very gently for around fifty minutes. Then let them cool completely in the pan, still weighted, before lifting them out. They are served at room temperature or cold, never hot.

What matters in this dish