Stuffed Grape Leaves

Stuffed grape leaves may not be an Italian dish, but it is definitely a Mediterranean dish. There are so many different way to make them and they’re all delicious. I could eat these for breakfast, lunch or dinner, especially with a side of hummus of tzatziki!

Ingredients

1lb ground beef

1lb ground lamb

1 1/2 cups white rice

1 tablespoon fresh chopped oregano

3 eggs

salt to taste

a jar of grape leaves

4 cups chicken or vegetable stock

1 lemon

Directions

In a large bowl, add your ground meat, rice, oregano, eggs and salt. Mix everything together until well combined

Take a bunch of grape leaves out of the jar and give them a rinse. Taking one grape leaf at a time, lay it flat and cut the stem off the bottom

Place about a teaspoon of the mixture (depending on how big the grape leaf is, you may need more), fold the sides over the filling and roll. Make sure to keep tucking the left and right sides of the grape leaf as you roll. Continue doing this until you use all of the meat mixture

In a large pot or dutch oven, line the bottom with some extra virgin olive oil and place the grape leaves in rows, seam side down. You can layer the grape leaves on top of each other once the bottom of the pot it covered

Add the chicken stock and the cut a lemon into pieces and add it in. Place a plate on top of the grape leaves while they cook, this will prevent them from opening up and moving around too much as they cook. Cover the pot and cook on low heat for about an hour

Once they are done cooking, uncover them and let them rest for 15 minutes before serving

I love to serve these with some kind of dip like hummus or tzatziki and a nice salad!