First time making dolmas from scratch & learned A LOT
First time making dolmas from scratch & learned A LOT
by Perky214
7 Comments
Fabtacular1
You gonna tell us what you learned or what?
Perky214
(1) I used canned (not fresh) grape leaves – next time I will rinse and open them all out. I wasted a half dozen grape leaves on the bottom of the pot and wound up with leaves I couldn’t use at the end, so I have extra filling I just cooked.
(2) Next time I’ll use kitchen snips instead of a knife on those stems – faster and easier
(3-6) I parboiled the rice for the filling – next time I think it will cook it fully and add the fully cooked rice to the rest of the meat and spices. Hopefully rice will be less mushy this way.
(7) Kitchen snips will help keep the leaf from splitting
(8-10) I’ll measure my filing better too – some dolmas got overfilled and exploded. Eyeballing it probably works once you have the experience. I am not there yet.
(11-14) Cooking process went well – but I think I needed to add more broth after the first cook.
(15) The tops of the top layer of dolmas are a little dry, but they taste good and are not a complete disaster!
———————————————
I used the dolma recipe from The Mediterranean Dish website:
7 Comments
You gonna tell us what you learned or what?
(1) I used canned (not fresh) grape leaves – next time I will rinse and open them all out. I wasted a half dozen grape leaves on the bottom of the pot and wound up with leaves I couldn’t use at the end, so I have extra filling I just cooked.
(2) Next time I’ll use kitchen snips instead of a knife on those stems – faster and easier
(3-6) I parboiled the rice for the filling – next time I think it will cook it fully and add the fully cooked rice to the rest of the meat and spices. Hopefully rice will be less mushy this way.
(7) Kitchen snips will help keep the leaf from splitting
(8-10) I’ll measure my filing better too – some dolmas got overfilled and exploded. Eyeballing it probably works once you have the experience. I am not there yet.
(11-14) Cooking process went well – but I think I needed to add more broth after the first cook.
(15) The tops of the top layer of dolmas are a little dry, but they taste good and are not a complete disaster!
———————————————
I used the dolma recipe from The Mediterranean Dish website:
https://www.themediterraneandish.com/stuffed-grape-leaves-dolmades
Edible is the bar when you step waaaay out of your comfort zone and take a flying leap into something you have NEVER done before.
These are totally edible, so I’m happy. The recipe was easy to follow but nothing teaches like experience.
Next time they’ll be prettier I’m sure 🙂
It looks like you used too much broth. You can layer the bottom of the pan with sliced potatoes, sliced tomatoes, and sliced eggplant(if you want).
I love dolmas and admire you!!
I did this last week- seriously a labor of love. We rolled 70!
They look beautiful OP. Thanks for sharing.
Any thoughts on making in bulk and freezing? Too moist upon defrosting?