This holiday season, I was on a roll. Okay, bad pun. But I’m thinking of two of the dishes I served at a casual open house for twenty friends. The main event was the Hungarian-style stuffed cabbage that I wrote about last month. For lighter fare, I also put out Armenian-style stuffed grape leaves from a foolproof recipe I got years ago from a Mrs. Sanassarian of Watertown, Massachusetts – long a hub of Armenian food and culture. 

At the time I was living in Cambridge, near the Watertown line.  And I found that compared to the supermarket offerings, the Armenian grocers carried much higher quality produce, along with intriguing items, like lahmejoun (paper-thin-crust Armenian pizza topped with ground lamb and spices), fresh dates, halvah, Turkish and Iranian pistachio nuts (which continue to put California’s to shame), and the rosewater-flavored confection, loukhoum.  

Across the Mediterranean and Middle East, there probably are as many fillings for grape leaves as there are kitchens to cook them in. The recipe Mrs. Sanassarian shared with me is meatless, made with sauteed onions, pine nuts and currants, rice, lots of parsley, dill, cinnamon and a bit of stewed tomatoes. The vibrant flavors of parsley and dill dominate. The rice— and there’s not a lot of it – is cooked only à point. Together, the rice, pine nuts and currants  deliver a texture you can bite into (unlike the store-bought mush.)  

Compared to cabbage, rolling grape leaves is easy, neat, even meditative. The leaves, thick and supple, come about sixty to a jar: two fat, tightly packed “cigars” in a lemon juice-and-vinegar brine. Some are imported from Greece; others packed in California. Both are excellent. 

When Mrs. Sanassarian handed me her recipe, neatly written out in Palmer-Method script, I wondered if the first ingredient listed was a mistake.

“Really?” I asked her. “Six cups of chopped onion?”  In my family, onions were used sparingly. No one that I knew used a weighted knife. “Yes, dear,” Mrs. Sanassarian assured me. “Six cups of chopped onions.”  

Before chopping those six cups, you’ll want to take one of the “cigars” of grape leaves out of the jar and put them into a big bowl of cold water. The leaves will keep their  bright, briny flavor, but with the cold-water soak, the acidity won’t overwhelm.

Getting the first batch out of the jar is the only challenge. As I mentioned, the two “cigars” are tightly packed. Use your fingers, get a grip, push, and pull. No worries. While the leaves are thin, they’re also very strong. And if you happen to rip a few, you’ll use them later to line the bottom of the pan. Place the leaves in the water and gently unfurl them and admire how pretty they are. 

Now you’re ready to chop onions. If you use a food processor (allowed!) be sure to pulse and stop when they’re coarsely chopped.  

The next step is sautéing the onions with the pine nuts and currants. I use a big cast iron pan (that I’ll later cook the rolls in). But any heavy-bottomed pan will do. I should mention that Mrs. Sanassarian recommended against using olive oil (“too heavy!”). I use safflower oil but I’m sure a light (not extra virgin) olive oil would work, too.

Let mixture simmer over a low flame until the onions are soft, but not at all brown. (If you’re not partial to currants, I sometimes make the recipe with pine nuts only, doubling the amount from 1/3 to 2/3 cup.)   

Add the chopped parsley and dill, cinnamon, sugar, and salt and black pepper. Mix, then cover and let the mixture simmer over a low flame for another ten minutes. Add the uncooked rice, sugar, stewed tomatoes (still made by Del Monte, although it’s easy to make with diced tomatoes). Simmer, covered, for another 15-20 minutes until the rice is about half cooked. (The rice will continue to cook after the leaves are rolled.)  Uncover the pan and let the mixture cool, then spoon it into a big bowl. 

Now set yourself up for rolling – best done sitting down at the kitchen table. You’ll need a good-sized cutting board and within reach the two big bowls – one with filling and the other with the soaking leaves. 

Now you’re ready to roll. Pick up a handful of leaves, squeeze the excess water into the bowl and place the leaves on the board.  Place a leaf dull side up, stem end closest to you.    

Place 1 Tbsp of filling close to the bottom where the stem was. Roll from the bottom up to cover the filling. Then fold from the sides in. Keep rolling, adjusting the leaf with your fingers until it seals itself at the pointy end.  

When you need more leaves, take them out of the jar (the second grouping is easier to remove) and soak them in the bowl of cold water. 

No question, you’ll have more leaves than filling. Use left over leaves (or any that may have ripped), dull side up, to line the bottom of the pan you used to sauté the onions.  (No need to wash it first.) Add the rolls on top of them. They can and should be touching, and more than one layer is fine.  

Pour a cup of water into the pan and place an inverted plate directly over the rolls. Cover the pan and simmer for about twenty minutes. Remove the cover and plate and squeeze the juice of half a lemon over the grape leaves and let them cool. 

Grape leaves are forgiving – and the process is easier and faster than it looks on the page. And the result is more than worth it. The sweet, briny, deep-green rolls are delicate, beautifully balanced: an easy-to-pick-up one-bite appetizer or side dish for a buffet.   

For serving, I place a row (or two, stacked – depending) of grape leaves on a round dish, with a half lemon in the middle for garnish. Alternatively, you could arrange the grape leaves around a small ramekin of yogurt mixed with fresh dill for dipping. 

Mrs. Sanassarian’s Armenian style stuffed grape leaves

Ingredients

6 cups diced onions
1/3 cup pine nuts
1/3 cup currants 
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 ¼ cup parsley
¼ cup fresh dill
½ t cinnamon
3 t kosher salt
½ t black pepper
1 cup rice
1 T sugar
1 cup stewed tomatoes, chopped
1 jar grape leaves
1 lemon  (half for squeezing, half for garnish)

Directions

1. Remove half the leaves from the jar and let them soak in a large bowl of cold tap water.
2. Chop onions – either by hand or in food processor, using “pulse.” 
3. Sauté onions, with pignoli and currants in oil over a low flame until onions are soft, about 10 minutes.
4. Add dill, parsley, cinnamon, salt and freshly ground pepper. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
5. Add rice, sugar, and stewed tomatoes. Cover and simmer 20 minutes until rice is half cooked. Uncover and let cool. 
6. Squeeze the water out of a few leaves  and place them on the cutting board.
7. Roll individual leaves, dull side up, with 1 Tbsp. of filling. 
8. Line the bottom of the pan with unused leaves, dull side up. 
9. Place the stuffed grape leaves in the pan, letting them touch and adding a second layer as needed. 
10. Pour 1 cup of water to the pan. Cover the grape leaves with an inverted plate, then cover the pan and simmer for 20 minutes. 
11. Off heat, squeeze the juice of half a lemon over the grape leaves and let them cool in the pan.

Photos by Carolyn Swartz