Yalanji - Stuffed Grape Leaves

Photo: Mimi Cooks

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups washed and drained white short grain rice( Egyptian rice)

1 bunch of finally chopped parsley

5 mediums diced tomatoes or a small can of tomato paste. Two finally diced 2 mediums Finally chopped Onions

cup olive oil

1 teaspoon You may add fresh or dry mint to the stuffing mix

Salt, black pepper and allspice to taste

4 Larges Potatoes

1 Cup olive oil to add to the pot

1 Cup Lemon juice

Preparation

Layer the bottom of your pot with washed and thinly sliced potatoes, about three or four big ones, mix it with salt, pepper and olive oil. Roll up your grape leaves and stuff your other vegetables, such as zucchinis and eggplants. Layer the stuffed vegetables and the rolled grape leaves in a nice way in your pot so when the meal is fully cooked you can invert it to a big platter and it would look nice. You may take the grape leaves rolls and the other vegetables out and assemble them in a nice way on a platter. cut up fresh tomatoes and add it up to the top layer of the pot before it starts cooking. Cook for about 2.5 to three hours on high heat for the first 20 minutes or until you hear it boiling, then lower the

Make sure that there is enough liquid in it to cook, you may add water too if the liquids are not enough to cook the meal.

Cook until all the rice is saturated with the liquids that you added. Turn of the heat, let stand for at least 20 minutes before inverting the pot to allow for all the extra liquid to be absorbed.

This meal is served at room temperature or cold, but you may serve it hot.

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About

This is an easy recipe for stuffed grape leaves. It is time consuming which is the case of most dishes cooked in the Arabic kitchen. I usually stuff about a dozen small zucchinis and another dozen of baby eggplants and add them to the same pot with the grape leaves.
You need to hollow the zucchinis and the eggplants with this special tool that takes out the inside to make space for the stuffing.
When stuffing the zucchinis and the eggplants make sure that you only stuff them half way with the rice mix, because when rice is cooked, it expands 3 times its size before cooking, otherwise you will end up with a meal full of rice that expanded beyond its space!
It takes about a pound (half a kilogram) of grape leaves to have a decent size pot that would feed a family of four to six people. You may stuff tomatoes , onions or bell pepper also and add to the pot.
This meal is vegetarian, cooked with olive oil and lemon juice only. No need to add water to it.
You may Google this recipe, you will find many variations of it depending on who posted it and where they are in the Mediterranean. Some variation of the same recipe are stuffing the grape leaves with beef or lamb and rice mix, then you would use only cooking oil instead of olive oil. It seems like a complicated recipe but it is not really, it just takes a long time to prepare.