Stuffed Grape Leaves

Oh dear sweet baby Jesus.

The next recipe was from Josh's old Chicago coworker & wife for stuffed grape leaves. I was not especially hopeful for this one, but given the turn of events with the Ponzi Bread, and the fact that the one time in my past I had deigned against my better judgment to try stuffed grape leaves and found them physically tasty although mentally challenging, like our wonderful new president, I still had hope.

The recipe for stuffed grape leaves calls for some slightly exotic ingredients--for starters, ground lamb, veal, or pork, which brought up several issues within me. First, I am a reluctant meat eater. That is to say, anyone who knows me knows how much I love animals. And therefore, anyone who knows me would be completely unsurprised to find out I was a vegetarian.

But I'm not. I eat meat. With relish (and ketchup-ahahahahah, ahem.). The thing is, I just love meat way to much to control myself around it. So much so that I can watch a TV show where they have to kill some poor animal, and I am screaming with horror. Then six seconds later they strip off the fur from the barely-dead whatever-it-is, and you see the muscle leg starting to resemble something you buy in the grocery store, and my stomach growls.

So, in short, I am hopeless. And a hypocrite. But as for now I feel like it is my one major vice, so I am standing by it. That might change.

My main concession to my guilt over this is I try mostly not to expand my repetoire to new types of meat, and I try not to eat baby animals, i.e., lamb and veal, when I can avoid it. I also select the ones treated better when I have the choice (you know, free range v CAFO, boring boring). This, of course, goes out the window when I eat cheap Greek food--somehow I like to forget that the lamb in that is actually lamb. But I basically never order rack of lamb or buy lamb chops, and the same goes for veal. Oh, delicious, delicious veal.

So, not only does this recipe call for cute baby things, but it calls for them to be ground. The thing is, veal tastes goddamn good and if I am going to commit the sin of eating a freaking calf, then it sure as shit isn't going to be ground up. And yes, yes, the recipe also said you could go with pork, but I had enlisted some friends to come over for the grape leaf experiement, and as they are kosher keepers, pork was not happening.

I toasted some pita bread and doused it in the garlic butter described in the Ponzi Bread recipe (a major stroke of brilliance) and coupled it with hummus to keep the Middle Eastern mood going. Then I made them eat the Gorgonzola Walnut Tart leftovers. Bekah and Sean brought over some lovely salad and wine. We waited for the grape leaves to be ready. I annoyingly added caveat after caveat that they didn't have to eat them to be polite if they didn't want to. They told me to shut the fuck up. I responded that Seriously, Don't eat the grape leaves if they taste bad.

When it was finally time for the grape leaves to be eaten, they all claimed they smelled good and tasted better. I tried to subtly not eat any, but Bekah and Sean and Josh are all very smart people, and caught me. I relented, took a bite, and then promptly made the same face Tom Hanks makes when he is eating the caviar in Big. As far as I am concerned, these were little be-leaved burritos of poo. Everyone else liked them, though. Sean had seconds. Josh is having them for lunch today, and is accusing me of being a picky eater. You can draw your own conclusions.

Looks can be deceiving

Koupepia (aka Dolmades, Stuffed Grape Leaves, or Little Cigars)

30 vine leaves (packed in a jar with stinky olive oil)
1 medium onion, finely chopped (I took an old friend's recommendation to try chopping the onion in the food processor. It was definitely an improvement, getting eye burning fit down to 1 when I opened the food processor to get the onions out).
2 tbsp olive oil
12 oz finely minced lamb (or a mixture of lamb and veal or even veal and pork)
4 oz short grain rice, washed and drained
1 tbsp parsely, finely chopped (or, in my case, dried parsley because fresh is just impossible to find)
1 tsp mint, finely chopped (or, in my case, way more, but who gives a shit)
salt and freshly ground pepper

to cover:
2 tbsp olive oil
lemon juice
stock or water

Cook the onion in the oil until soft. Mix with all the other filling ingredients. Wonder if this means you are supposed to cook the lamb and the rice first, or if it is going to cook once wrapped. Decide it likely will cook once wrapped, but realize you may be poisoning your guests/make them crunch uncooked rice. Think this is a really, really shitty gamble to have to take.

Lay a vine leaf shiny side down. Snip off the stem. Put 1tbsp of filling near the stem end. Fold the stem end over and then the sides toward the middle. Roll up firmly. Anal-retentively use a tbsp measure for each individual grape leaf. Think about how this is gross, smells bad, and tiny pieces of ground lamb are probably infecting corners of your house with unseen outbreaks of e coli.

Line the bottom of a heavy pan with vine leaves. Now arrange the little cigars on top, close together, in layers. Cover with a few more vine leaves. Now pour over the olive oil. Then add just enough stock or water, mixed with 1-2 tbsp of lemon juice (or, rather, one juiced lemon whose output you don't bother to measure), to cover. Put a heavy plate upside down on top. Either that, or use your cast iron chili pot and use the proper cover like normal people. Bring to a boil and simmer very slowly, covered, for 1 hour, or until everyone gets impatient and wants to eat. Think how your friends are very nice to tell you that it smells good, even though you are pretty sure it smells like you are boiling gym socks.

Koupepia can be eaten hot, but despite the meat filling, they are often eaten cold, sometimes accompanied by a bowl of yogurt.

Take a bite. Think this is digusting. Wonder how many days you can send Josh to work with leftover grape leaves before it becomes a divorcable offense.