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Rediscover vine leaves

July 7, 2011 7 Comments Filed Under: Food, Recipes, Uncategorized

I like to wrap halloumi cheese in vine leaves too

Vine leaves have got a slightly naff 1970s image in some ways. After the 1974 war between Turkey and Greece over  Cyprus, London had an influx of refugees from both sides. Small Cypriot restaurants serving tarama, hot pitta bread, tzatziki, ect mushroomed particularly around North London. One of the most interesting dishes was dolmades/ dolmas, a rice concoction wrapped in vine leaves. Fresh vine leaves not being as available in London, you could buy them brined in jars and plastic bags from corner shops and even large supermarkets. They fell away in popularity however. It’s easier to buy sushi seaweed than vine leaves in the big four supermarkets nowadays. Last summer I discovered, via allotmenteer @shoozographer, the delights of fresh vine leaves. Briefly blanched in hot water, vineleaves have a fresh lemony taste which also complements fish.
I’m serving salmon wrapped in vine leaves at The Underground Restaurant at Camp Bestival at the end of July. A few weeks ago I headed up to @shoozographer’s allotment in Tottenham to pick 700 vine leaves in advance of the festival. But how to keep them until the end of July?
One blog I came across suggested rolling the vineleaves in bundles of 20, putting them into an airtight jar and they would keep. Sceptical, I tried this and I can confirm that it works. The leaves remain in good shape.
I brined the rest.
To brine vineleaves:
1. Pick vineleaves of the size of the hand. Best pick in spring or early summer from unsprayed grape vines.
2. Snip off stalks and brush or rinse free of insects and dirt.
3. Sort into piles, shiny side down, of 20. I rolled them, cigar style and fastened with twine.
4. Now for brining: the old fashioned way is to put enough salt in the boiling water so that an uncooked egg, placed in the water, will float. This, according to Wild Fermentation, is the equivalent of a 10% brine solution: 450g of sea salt to 4 litres of water. I did a lighter brine of 5%: so 225g salt to 4 litres of water.
5. Don’t use table salt, use only granulated, flake or pickling salt, what the Americans call Kosher salt. I use French sel gris.
6. Boil for ten minutes.
7. Half fill your jars or food grade plastic container with the brining solution then carefully pack with your rolled up bundles.
8. Top up the jars so that they cover the vine leaves if neccessary.
9. This will keep indefinitely.
10. Soak in fresh water and desalinate before using.

If you want to do a small amount for supper, just put the vine leaves in hot water, within a few minutes they will change colour to a khaki green. Then wrap them around the food or stuff them with rice and pickles/sultanas for dolmas. (A recipe for this is in my book: Supper club: recipes and notes from the underground restaurant)

Vine leaves are also good to place in jars with other pickles as they keep them crunchy.
You can also freeze or dry vine leaves. Freezing: just lay them flat in piles of twenty and seal in a plastic freezer bag. Drying: run a thread near the stem through a bundles of 20 and leave to dry, hanging. When needed, steep them in boiling water until they recover some of their green colour. (Although I’ve not tried this yet).
You might ask, why pick and brine them yourself? Why not buy them? I sometimes find store packaged vine leaves tough and stringy. If you select them yourself then you know you are picking only the tenderest vine leaves.

 Preserving for Bestival /Dry preserving

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Comments

  1. Nancy - Hungry in Camden

    July 7, 2011 at 1:57 pm

    Very interesting about the influx in the 70s! I love vine leaves but I agree, it's pretty tough to get them. Would never have considered buying fresh then brining in bulk, but then again I cook for myself and one other person, not a festival of hungry people! 🙂

    Reply
  2. German

    July 7, 2011 at 4:57 pm

    Fantastic retro food. I remeber very well a my granmother cooking with vine leaves.

    Reply
  3. Eat Hackney

    July 8, 2011 at 11:06 am

    Very pretty parcels!

    Reply
  4. theundergroundrestaurant

    July 8, 2011 at 12:38 pm

    Thanks for your comments…x

    Reply
  5. Gin and Crumpets

    July 18, 2011 at 9:47 am

    My friend has a grape vine going in her garden – produces a bunch of grapes every year – and I've been trying to persuade her we should eat the leaves since the grapes aren;t up to much. Going to send her this link!

    Reply
  6. Gizmogirl

    August 18, 2011 at 12:59 pm

    We have a grape vine and have talked about using the vine leaves (seemed a waste to put them all in the compost bin). Your post has definitley spurred me on. Thanks for descriptions of different preserving methods. I am wondering if I can use the Fleur de Sel de Noirmoutier that we have, for the brine? Any advice?

    Reply
  7. theundergroundrestaurant

    August 18, 2011 at 1:08 pm

    Hi gizmogirl:
    I don't see why not, but hey, it's very expensive and you need alot of salt. I'd use a cheaper sea salt.
    But actually I have found the non brined ones wrapped into an air tight jar also work very well.

    Reply

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MsMarmiteLover aka Kerstin Rodgers.

Chef, photographer, author, journalist, blogger. Pioneer of the supperclub movement.

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Kerstin Rodgers/MsMarmiteLover
Apple rose blossom tarts with rose jam. Rose Appl Apple rose blossom tarts with rose jam.  Rose Apple Blossom Tarts

Serves 8

Equipment: 
Microwave
Cupcake or muffin tin

I use a red-skinned apple to make these, to get a hint of blush at the edges of the ‘petals’.

Ingredients:
4 Pink Lady or Royal Gala apples, cored, cut into quarters, sliced thinly into half moons
1 lemon, squeezed
1 pack all butter readymade puff pastry 320g, on a roll, cut into 8 strips about 6 cms long
100g of melted butter
1/2 jar of rose jam
1 or 2 tbsp cinnamon or cardamom, ground 
Pinch maldon salt
2 or 3 tbsp icing sugar

Instructions

Prepare a bowl of acidulated water (cold water with lemon juice) to prevent browning.
Core the apples, and cut them in quarters. Slice thinly into half-moons (a mandolin is useful for this). 
Put them into a large bowl of cold water with the lemon.
Microwave the bowl of sliced apples for 5 minutes until soft enough to bend slightly but not cook them.
Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
Roll out the puff pastry. Divide into 8 sections by cutting the roll into quarters then halving each quarter. You will end up with 8 approximately 6cm strips.
Brush the strip with melted butter then paint with a layer of rose jam. You can then dust with either ground cinnamon or cardamom.
Lay the apple slices along the top of the pastry strip, overlapping them. Fold up the bottom half of the pastry strip to make an pleat with the skin side of the apple half moon poking over the top.
Roll up the folded pastry strips until they look like a rose made of apple at the top
Place ‘rose’ side up, in a buttered cupcake tin
Repeat until all are done and bake for 20 -30 minutes.
Using a tea strainer or small sieve, sprinkle with icing sugar.
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