Afife Harris is known to many Dunedin people for her Lebanese food stall at the Otago Farmers Market.
She came to Dunedin in 1990 with her New Zealand husband, Bill Harris, and they have brought up three sons.
She loves food, teaches Lebanese cooking, runs Chai and Chat, a group for immigrant women, has written
A Global Feast with Beryl Lee, and organises people to feature in this column.
Here, she shows us how to make stuffed vine leaves, known as mehshi warak inab or dolmati, along with zucchini and peppers.
Ingredients
About 500g fresh soft vine leaves
1kg small zucchini
3-4 coloured peppers
stuffing
500g minced meat
1½ cups rice
1 Tbsp oil
salt and pepper
sauce
130g can tomato puree (or a 400g can chopped tomatoes in juice)
Method
To prepare the vegetables
Pick and wash vine leaves. Trim off the stems. Pile them in a bowl and cover with boiling water, pushing them under for a minute or so until they soften and change from fresh green to a khaki colour. Drain and leave to cool.
Cut the stem off the zucchini. If they are large, cut in half to make two shorter pieces. Remove the core by inserting and twisting an apple corer down the centre of the zucchini but not as far as the other end. Take out the centre then use the handle of a teaspoon to widen the hole, leaving the other end of the zucchini intact. Afife has a special long tool designed for hollowing zucchini that she brought from Lebanon.
Cut the tops off the peppers, so the top part with the stalk forms a lid. Remove seeds and membranes.
To make the stuffing
Rinse the rice, drain and put in a bowl. Add the mince, oil, salt and pepper and mix well until combined.
To stuff the vegetables
Place some vine leaves shiny side down on a board. Put a strip of filling, about a teaspoon or more depending on the size of the leaf, across the widest part, leaving room to fold in the edges. Fold in the sides and roll up from the bottom to make a cigar-shaped parcel. Place in a large pot until the bottom is covered.
Rinse the zucchini inside and out and fill with the stuffing, leaving space at the top for the rice to expand as it cooks. Place them over the stuffed vine leaves.
Push the stuffing into the peppers, filling the corners but leaving space at the top for the rice to expand. Put the lids on the peppers and put them in the pot.
To cook
Place a plate upside down over the vegetables to prevent them floating.
Dissolve the tomato paste in 1-2 cups of water and pour over the vegetables. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Top with water (boiling water is quicker) to the level of the plate and cook uncovered until the liquid has reduced and the rice is cooked, about 20 minutes.
Turn off the heat, put the lid on the pot and allow the vegetables to steam and the rice to continue to soften for a few minutes.
Serve the stuffed vegetables with plain unsweetened yoghurt.
Tips
• Stuffed vine leaves are called dolmades in Turkey and Greece, but in Lebanon they are known as mehshi warak inab, in Arabic.
• If you want to preserve vine leaves for use out of season, put the softened drained leaves in a plastic bag, seal and freeze. To defrost, soak the frozen leaves in warm water.
• If you don't soak the leaves, they will crack and break when you try to roll them.
• Don't throw out the zucchini middles as they can be used in other dishes: fry a chopped onion in a little oil, add a chopped tomato, salt, pepper and the zucchini middles. You could add a couple of eggs to the mix if you like.
• An alternative version is made with a meat topping to stuffed vine leaves: put pieces of meat such as schnitzel or steak in the bottom of the pot and the stuffed vine leaves on top. Cook with the plate and the tomato sauce as directed, then turn the dish out on to a plate so the meat is on top.
• Cabbage leaves are stuffed the same way, softening the leaves before stuffing, but add chopped garlic between each layer of rolls before cooking.
• Silverbeet leaves are good softened and stuffed with a vegetarian stuffing: chop parsley and spring onion, mix with washed rice, mashed chickpeas and the zest and juice of a lemon and season with salt and pepper.
• Stuffed eggplant is also popular in the Middle East: brush the eggplant with oil and put in the oven for a short time to soften. Stuff and cook as above, but add some pomegranate molasses to the cooking liquid.
• Thanks to Centre City New World.