Quinoa and Lentil Dolmades
With a little bit of patience, you'll get the hang of this quickly, and soon choosing how you'd like to fill these little grape leaves is up to you! You may become slightly addicted to how fun and creative these little guys can become; have a great time!
Ingredients
Setup
- 3/4 cup quinoa, rinsed
- 1 1/2 cup vegetable broth
- 1 cup cooked lentils
- 1/4 cup kalamata olives, roughly chopped
- small handful of mint leaves, chopped
- juice of one lemon
- 1 jar of grape leaves
- salt / pepper to taste
Directions
Add the vegetable broth and quinoa to a saucepan and cook for 12-15 minutes. Allow to cool and stir in the lentils, kalamata olives, mint and juice of 1/2 lemon. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Meanwhile, gently unroll the grape leaves. Place the torn leaves in one pile (you'll use them) and the good ones in another.
Add the in tact leaves to a large pot, dutch oven or large skillet with high sides and add enough water to cover them. Bring the water to a boil and cook for 5-7 minutes. Drain and allow to cool.
Add the torn leaves to a large sauce pan or skillet with high sides. Simply line the bottom of the pan with the leaves as they create a buffer between the heat and your cooking dolmades so they do not burn.You'll want at least 3-4 layers of leaves.
Using your intact leaves, place one in front of you with the veining face up. Take a small knife and cut off the stem (it will only be about 1/4"). Now, take a heavy tablespoon of the quinoa mixture and place it on the leaf, in the middle, just about where you cut the stem. Fold the left bottom part of leaf up and over to the right (over the mixture.) and the right bottom part of the leaf up and over to the left. Now you are covering the mixture. Roll up just once. Now, bring the sides in (like you are rolling a burrito) and finish rolling up.
Make the roll pretty tight as you don't want them coming apart. You'll get the feel for it as you do it.
As you finish rolling each one, place it in the pot/pan with the bed of torn leaves. Make sure you fit them in the pot tightly and you can layer them.
Finally, weigh them down with some sort of weight. I used a small plate. You could also use a small lid. Add enough water to cover the dolmades. Bring to a boil and down to a simmer; cook for 60 minutes. Drain and allow to cool. I placed my pot on a towel and in the fridge.
Enjoy!
Transfer them to a sealed container and they will keep 3-4 days.
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