Grapes are a wonderful plant. He gives us amazing berries that can be eaten fresh. You can cook a lot of goodies from them - raisins, jam, juice, wine ... Grape kvass is made from young green branches and leaves. And we'll talk about dolma. About this very tasty dish, which is so loved in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Central Asia, and the southern republics of the former Soviet Union. In Moldova they are called cabbage rolls (with the accent on the first syllable). Dolma really resembles Slavic cabbage rolls, only the filling of minced meat, onions, rice and greens is wrapped not in a cabbage leaf, but in a grape leaf. And they turn out smaller than a pigeon. The taste is original. Grape delicate leaves give the dish a very pleasant sourness and aroma. Today we will talk about how to prepare grape leaves for the winter.
Not every grape leaf is suitable for dolma, but only young and healthy. You need to choose bright green, shiny, green grape varieties. In red varieties, they are more rigid and the edges are embossed. You need to collect leaves during flowering before processing. But since the leaves of the grapes grow constantly, you can collect them throughout the summer, before processing. No need to take leaves from the vine growing near the road.
It is important to properly process the foliage in order to fully reveal the aroma that will give dolma a special taste in winter.
harvesting grape leaves
And in order to be able to enjoy dolma at any time of the year, you need to take care of the preservation of grape leaves. This can be done in many ways: freeze, pickle, pickle, preserve. With any method of canning, the leaves must be prepared. They must be washed and dried, or lightly rubbed. It is advisable to slightly wither - the leaves become less brittle - it is easier to manipulate with them. Cut off the petioles.
Freeze
The easiest and fastest way to store grape leaves is freezing. Fold the prepared leaves in a pile of 10-15 pieces. Roll up, wrap in cling film or place in plastic bags. Place in freezer. The leaves become very fragile when frozen, so it is better to use a container. To prepare dolma, they are thawed at room temperature. Then scalded with boiling water. Then the useful qualities and vitamins are preserved in them as much as possible.
bottling
- The container must first be washed well. To do this, pour 1 tsp inside. salt and baking soda, pour some water and shake the bottle vigorously. Then rinse with clean water and let it drain.
- We put the leaves in 3-6 pieces (as it will turn out), we turn it into a thin tube so that it crawls into the neck of the bottle. We help to lay the leaves as tightly as possible with a thin long stick or a cocktail tube. Be careful not to tear the leaves! In addition to grape leaves, nothing should be in the bottle.
- We press down, let out air, tightly close the lid.
Now we put it in storage in a closet, on the mezzanine, in the cellar. Putting the workpiece in the cold is contraindicated. With this method of processing, the product is stored for up to two years. When you want to cook dolma, cut the bottle. We take out the leaves from the container, fill it with cold water. There may be a yellowish coating on the leaves - these are amino acids. Do not take such points as a sign of damage. We straighten, stuff with minced meat and cook.
An option for an amateur: we also fill the bottle with leaves, but add a little salt.
dry canning
Another easy way to preserve grape leaves is dry canning. To do this, we tightly lay the prepared leaves in clean glass jars in layers of 10-15 pieces, sprinkling them with salt (not much salt is needed). Next, they need to be sterilized in a hot oven for 5-10 minutes, roll up with lids. Store in a dark place.
Pickling
In this section, we will look at how to pickle grape leaves. Grape leaves for the winter for dolma can be pickled like ordinary vegetables. We've looked at several ways below.
1st way
To pickle the leaves we need:
- Rinse and sterilize small glass jars.
- Prepared grape leaves of about 8-14 pieces are rolled into tubes and tightly packed in jars.
- The next step, pour boiling water for 5-10 minutes, then drain the liquid. Repeat the procedure. For the third time, pour boiling marinade over and roll up with a metal lid.
Marinade preparation
For 1 liter of water, add 1 tablespoon of salt, the same amount of sugar, and 2 tablespoons of 9 percent vinegar.
2nd way
Another way to pickle grape leaves for dolma.
- We wash the harvested crop under running water, scald it with boiling water.
- At the bottom of a sterilized glass jar we put 1-2 pcs. bay leaf, 4-5 peppercorns, 1-2 cloves. Lay the leaves carefully on top.
- We prepare the marinade from 1 liter of warm boiled water, salt and sugar, 1 tbsp each. spoon and 1-2 tbsp. spoons of 9% vinegar.
- Pour the resulting brine into a jar, put spices on top: bay leaf, cloves, pepper.
- Close with a plastic lid. After a day, pickled grape leaves for dolma are ready for use, but can be stored for a long time in a cool place.
You can also buy pickled grape leaves for dolma in the store, but as often happens, home-made preparations are always tastier. And the product pickled with your own hands corresponds to your taste preferences.
salting
Consider how to pickle the leaves. Below we have prepared three ways to prepare a salty product.
1st way
The leaves can be preserved in a 10% saline solution. Washed and tightly rolled leaves are tightly packed into prepared dishes, poured with non-hot brine. Close with plastic lids. Salted material, well stored at room temperature. Before use, the leaves prepared in this way should be kept in slightly warm water for about two hours, so we will remove excess salt.
2nd way
Grape leaves can be salted in a less saturated solution. We carry out manipulations as when pickling. Only instead of marinade we use hot brine with a salt content of about 2-3%.
3rd way
This salting method includes spices. We take scalded and rolled leaves, put them in clean jars of 0.5 liters. We make a mixture of:
- salt - 1 teaspoon,
- dry mustard - 1 teaspoon, cover the leaves with it,
- add allspice (several peas).
Fill everything with boiling water, roll up the lids. Storage at room temperature.
For a long time in the East they did it even easier. The washed leaves were placed in a barrel, poured with steep brine, covered with a clean cloth and pressed down with a sinker from above.
Dry storage
And now, for the sake of which all our efforts are - Dolma!
This delicious dish is quite easy to prepare. Minced meat (about 1 teaspoon) is wrapped in a grape leaf in an envelope, like cabbage rolls, only smaller in size. For minced meat, we use either beef or lamb. Finely chopped onions are added to it, greens to taste - mint, cilantro, parsley, as well as washed rice, if desired, it can be boiled a little until half cooked. Mix everything well, season with salt, pepper, spices. Put in the refrigerator for half an hour. Bone broth is boiled in advance, filtered through a sieve. Wrapped minced meat in leaves, like cabbage rolls, tightly put in a saucepan and cook the dish over low heat until cooked.
