Stuffed Grape Leaves

Total Time: 1 hr 55 mins Preparation Time: 1 hr 30 mins Cook Time: 25 mins

Ingredients

• 1 (16 ounce) jar grape leaves
• 2 lbs ground lamb, very lean
• 2 1/2 cups whie rice, like mahatma brand
• 2 tablespoons garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 2 ounces tomato paste
• 1 (8 ounce) can whole tomatoes

Recipe

• 1 if you have lefover filling, you can stuff it into a cleaned, cored bell pepper, or roll then in cabbage leaves.
• 2 rinse the grape leaves in clean water, and pinch the stems off.
• 3 put then in a collander over a bown while u work wih them.
• 4 mix all the fillings together, rice, lamb, salt, garlic and tomato paste.
• 5 prepare a deep pot by puting in lamb bones (ask the butcher to cut up a few shank bones or leg bones for u) in the bottom of the pot.
• 6 if you don't want to do this, or can't, use your silverware in the bottom of the pot, a rack will not keep them high enough-- maybe u could use a basket, but i don't i just use bones or silverware to keep the leaves off the bottom.
• 7 now line what ever you have chosen to use with a few grape leaves and the stems u have pinched off.
• 8 lay the grape leaf with the shiney side down on a clean flat surface (counter top is fine) u want to see the rough back, and the leaf viens.
• 9 put about 1 tbls of the filling on to each leaf, and flatten it out into a finger lenght& width, but now going all the way to the edges.
• 10 starting at the back, where u pinched the stem off, roll up over the meat mixture, then tuck in the sides, now roll tighly up.
• 11 similarly to rolling a cigar.
• 12 now line the pot with the rolled grape leaves, alternating directions with each layer-- pack these tightly.
• 13 when you are finished rolling the leaves, you will need to find a plate to lay on top of these leaves cause u r going to weight the leaves down with a full jar of water.
• 14 when u have the plate, and large canning jar of water ontop, fill the pot to the top of the plate with water, hen bring to a boil, then you will have to watch the pot, and keep the water level up with boiling water (keep a kettle also boiling while u boil the leaves) these cook faster this way, approx 25 min, per jar.