KitchenLent & holidays
Yalanchi
Grape leaves rolled tight around rice, sweet onions, herbs and pine nuts, simmered in olive oil and lemon and served cold.
Yalanchi means "liar" or "false": these are sarma without the meat, the version for Lent and for every holiday table. The filling is mostly onions, cooked slowly until sweet, so don't rush that step.
Rolling is the part everyone remembers: a kitchen table, a stack of leaves, and someone checking that yours are tight enough.
Ingredients
Amounts in the steps are for 8 servings.
Tools
- Wide heavy pot with a lid
- Small plate to weigh the rolls down
Steps
Rinse the grape leaves in a bowl of warm water and drain. Snip off any stems.
Warm ¼ cup of the oil in a pan and cook the onions over medium-low heat until soft and sweet, not browned.
Add the pine nuts, rice, tomato paste, currants, allspice, cinnamon, mint and salt, and stir for two minutes.
Add ½ cup of the water and simmer until it's absorbed. The rice will still be hard. Stir in the parsley and let the filling cool.
Lay a leaf shiny side down, stem end toward you. Put a heaping teaspoon of filling near the stem, fold in the sides and roll it up tight. Repeat.
Line a wide pot with a few torn leaves. Pack the rolls in snugly, seam side down, in layers.
Pour over the rest of the oil, the lemon juice and enough of the remaining water to just cover. Weigh them down with an upside-down plate, cover and simmer very gently until the rice is tender.
Let them cool in the pot, then chill. Serve cold with lemon wedges.
Good to know
- Fresh leaves
- If you have a vine, blanch young leaves for a minute in salted boiling water first.
- Tight rolls
- Loose rolls burst as the rice swells. Roll firmly, and pack them close.
- Keeping
- They keep five days in the fridge, covered with their own oil.
Ask your grandparents
- Did someone in the family pick grape leaves from a vine?
- Currants and pine nuts, or not?
- How many could you roll in an hour?