Vine leaves stuffed with rice and minced meat

VINE LEAVES STUFFED WITH MINCED MEAT

Ingredients

600 g. ground beef

140 g. rice Carolina
4 large dry onions

1 bunch dill

350 g. fresh vine leaves or preserved in brine

The juice from 1.5 large lemons

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 ground coriander

Salt and pepper to taste  

1 piece of hot red chili pepper in the size of a watermelon seed  

180 ml olive oil + 60 ml olive that you will put into the meat

Instructions

Wash the vine leaves and strain.

Put into pot 2 l water. Place the pot over high heat.

Split the washed leaves into three parts.

Place the first batch of the leaves into the boiling water and leave them there for two minutes.

The green color of the leaves becomes light brown.

With a slotted spoon remove them from the boiling water and place them in a bowl.

I continue in the same manner with the remaining leaves.

Let them to cool in the bowl.

Stuffing

Peel the two onions in a food processor and mince them.

Put salt over the minced meat and knead it so the salt goes everywhere.

Pour 60 g of olive oil into the minced meat and knead again.

Pour the chopped onions into the meat and knead again.

Scour the dill and wash it.

Finely chop the dill into the minced meat and knead again.

Thoroughly wash the rice with water in a colander.

Let the rice drain and put it into the mince. Knead all the ingredients together.

Wrapping

Stretch a vine leaf over the palm of your left hand and open it.

Put a teaspoon of filling in the middle of the leaf.

Fold the leaf left and right and cover the filling.

Fold at one end the leaf again and then wrap around the stuffing and form a cylinder. .

Place those cylinders in a pot one next to the other.

Continue this way until you finish all the stuffing.

If you have left over leaves, suffuse them over the dolmades as a lid.

Cut the remaining two onions into rings and place them into the pot over the leaves which cover the dolmades.

Place a ceramic plate into the pot over the dolmades.

The weight of this dish presses the dolmades and helps them to maintain their shape.

Add boiling water into the pot until the plate submerges into it.

Pour 180 g of olive oil into the pot.

Add some salt and the small piece the hot chili pepper.

Boil dolmades for half an hour over medium heat.

Add the juice of 1.5 lemons and boil half an hour more.

Put one of them in a small dish and leave it to cool. Try it to see if its taste is right.

If you think it needs correction, correct it.

You can offer the dolmades as they are or with an egg and lemon sauce over them.

Egg and lemon sauce

Break 2 eggs into a bowl and beat them with a wire for 2 min.

Pour into the eggs the lemon juice little by little beating continuously with the wire.

With deep ladle take boiling broth from the pot with the stuffed vine leaves and pour it into the eggs.

Repeat this two more times.

Mix constantly the eggs with the wire.

Remove the pot with vine leaves from the heat.      

Pour the egg and lemon sauce over the stuffed vine leaves.

Shake the pan left and right so the sauce goes everywhere.