Grape Leaves

Last night, I made Jamie's favorite meal, Grape Leaves. They are quite a task to take on, as they require lots of labor (the rolling of the grape leaves). There is no strict recipe; It's just a little here, a little there, do this, do that, so I am going to attempt to document my recipe PW style, picture by picture. Enjoy!

Start by gathering the following spices: Salt, pepper, cinnamon, onion powder, and garlic powder.

Sprinkle them on a pound of ground lean beef (I use 94% or 90%). Generously sprinkle the garlic powder, cinnamon, pepper, and give a light sprinkle of salt and onion powder. You want to have a nice sort of thick layer of spices all over your meat! It looks like this:

Next, dump some basmati rice over the top of your meat. Get your hands in there and work it all together. Add more rice if it doesn't look like enough. There should be a nice balance of rice and meat, just like this:

Now, for the grape leaves! Get a can of grape leaves from the store. Many grocery stores have them, sometimes near the pickles and other times on the international foods isle. Take the grape leaves out of the can. One giant grape leaf looks like this:

Cut all of the grape leaves in half, being sure to cut off completely the little stem coming out the bottom. It is thick, and you wouldn't really want to eat it. Then start placing a reasonable amount of meat on the half of the grape leaf. See below for an example. If you put too little, you'll have weak grape leaves. If you put too much, Jamie's family will make fun of your giant grape leaves. It takes a lot of patience to roll these little things up!

Lay your rolled grape leaves in a big pot, preferably one that has a large surface area on the bottom. You want to stack as few grape leaf layers as possible. Stack them in a circular pattern like you see below.

After you roll all of the meat into the grape leaves, you'll need to add olive oil, garlic cloves, lemon juice, and water to the pan.

First, dump in some olive oil - I would say about 4T, but don't measure. Add about the same amount of lemon juice. Then, add some water until it reaches just the top of the grape leaves.

Last, put in 4 cloves of peeled garlic. This time, I used a garlic press to make the garlic disperse more around the pan. You can do that, or just put the garlic in whole.

Turn the heat on high, with your pot uncovered until you hear it start to boil. At that point, turn the heat to medium and add a lid to the pot. They need to cook for about 45 minutes total.

45 minutes after you originally turned on the heat, you are ready to serve your grape leaves! Pour some nonfat yogurt into a bowl, and add a little salt on top. Scoop some salted yogurt on a plate next to your grape leaves and enjoy! They will be delicious!