Vine Leaves

I highly recommend Miriel’s recipe for these stuffed vine leaves. I never really tasted fresh homemade ones and I can honestly say, they do not compare to the ones from the supermarkets. These were AMAZING!! The only issue is that they take a bit more time to make (unless there are 2-3 of you helping out). 

Ingredients:

Makes 20 vine leaves

• 1 tomato
• 1 red onion
• 1/2 packet of mint
• 50g of fresh spinach
• 130g of uncooked long grain rice
• 80ml of lemon juice
• 50ml of olive oil
• 1 tsp of salt
• Vine leaves
• 2 potatoes

1. Dice the tomato and chop the onion, mint and spinach quite finely, then mix it all together in a bowl.
2. Add the rice, lemon juice, salt and olive oil to the rest of the ingredients,
3. Peel the poatoes into 1-2cm thick slices and place them evenly on the bottom of a saucepan.
4. Take the rice mix and place in sieve over a bowl, press down to squeeze out all the liquid (keep it !!)
5. Take a vine leave and place it on a hard surface, take 1 – 2 tsp of the rice mix and place it in the centre near the bottom of the vine leave (see first image).
6. Roll the rice mix in the leaf away from you and tuck the sides under the middle so that the mix can’t leak out whilst cooking.
7. Place all the stuffed vine leaves in the saucepan and then place a flat plate over the top to avoid them from floating.
8. Pour the liquid that was collected before and water until the plate is covered.
9. Cook in a medium heat for 40-50 mins.
10. Take the saucepan off the heat and drain the vine leaves. Leave them to cool before placing them in the fridge.