How To Preserve Vine Leaves
| Vine leaves are a fantastic ingredient used in many Middle Eastern and Mediterranean dishes. They make perfect wrappers for dishes such as warak enab or dolmak (vine leaves stuffed with rice and mince). You can buy vine leaves but if you are lucky enough to grow your own or can source fresh leaves they will only be available for a short time of the year. This our guide for how to preserve vine leaves. Vines are amazing plants. Not only do they provide delicious grapes for eating or – better – making wine, the leaves are entirely edible. Grape leaves don’t freeze very well. They tend to snap in the freezer and therefore can’t be used to wrap delicious goodies. The best way to preserve vine leaves is to store them in brine. This method works very well and will preserve for the vine leaves for 4 months, up to 6 months. |
How To Preserve Vine Leaves
Equipment Needed
Saucepan of boiling water
Plastic tub for storing vine leaves – for this recipe a 450 ml tub will be perfect
Weight to press the vine leaves down. We use glass weights but you could fill a plastic bag with water and put it on top of the leaves in the tub
Ingredients
20 fresh vine leaves
1 tbs salt
300 ml (10 fl oz) water
How To Preserve Vine Leaves in Brine
Check the volume of your plastic container. Make a brine. Place 1 tbs salt to 300ml water and stir until the salt has dissolved. If you have a bigger container, scale up these quantities.
Bring a saucepan of water to the boil. Blanch the leaves by immersing them in the water for 30 seconds at a time. You can hold them by the stalks.
Remove the leaves and let them cool.
They will go from a bright green to an olive green colour.
Keeping the stalks on, stack the leaves, 10 at a time.
Roll the leaves together, then you can trim the stalks.
Put in the plastic container .
Repeat the process for the other 10 leaves. Weigh the leaves down.
Pour over the brine. Make sure the tub is as full as possible and that the vine leaves are totally submerged and seal the lid.
The leaves will be preserved for at least four months. When you want to use them, take them out of the brine, wash them in clean water and then you can make delicious stuffed vine leaves.
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