French la Vie

Nearly twenty years ago I watched Annie make feuilles de vignes (dolmas) as she calls them. Her nimble hands could roll five to my one. Annie I daresay made feuille de vigne once a week. My right leg, especially my thigh, I have Annie to thank is a feuille de vigne. I have had many feuille de vigne in the years I have known Annie. Helped her make them I have. Annie's kitchen, my clothes and hair smell like them. That is how it is when you saute ten onions with mint and fennel to make feuille de vigne: Perfumed air and chunky thighs.

A love affair is what Annie has for her mother's feuille de vigne recipe.

 

 

 

Annie made her last batch of feuilles de vignes a few months ago. Making feuilles de vignes was one of her pleasures. If she had an occassion or not she would make them, then give most of them away. I had my share, so did other friends and mostly family.

In 2000 I wrote Annie's recipe for feuilles de vignes down in my cookbook. I tried to write every detail of what she said and did. But she did everything so quickly, and sometimes her French to my English ears got lost between adding water and layering the pan with fennel. 

 

 

 

 When Annie could no longer make feuille de vigne I asked her if she wanted me to make some in her kitchen. Annie loved the idea. But soon there after she started to slow down even more. Her eagerness was relaced with weariness. Annie's Mother's feuilles de vignes recipe was a closed book since last October.

 

 

(When writing down Annie's Mother's recipe, back in 2000, I did not know how to write Dolma in French.)

 

Last week I decided I was going to make feuille de vigne in my kitchen. I bought the grape leaves then told Annie of my plan, "Do you want to come over and watch?" I knew she would say no, but being asked still gives her pleasure. I have learned from watching Annie that just because she cannot do certain things doesn't mean she doesn't want to hear about it or be asked to take par in it.

While making the feuille de vigne I must have run back and forth to her home at least ten times. I wanted her to "feel" she was in the kitchen with me. I asked her questions I knew the answers to, and asked her to repeat details to double check if I was doing it right.

Annie asked me, "How long did it take you to make them?" I knew it use to take her three hours from start to finish. I said, "Three hours plus." She beamed, "Sounds about right."

 

 

I rinsed the leaves, laid them flat on the kitchen table. I chopped the ten yellow onions for two and a half pounds of rice, cried my eyes out, sauteed the onions with the rice, dried mint and fennel and salt. My house smelled just like Annie's.

 

Annie's recipe for Feuille de Vigne:

 

Two and a half pounds of rond rice (One kilo).

Ten yellow onions chopped finely.

A large handful of dried mint, Annie had some she picked and dried from last summer.

A large pinch of dried fennel, again herbs from Annie's stash.

3.5 ounces of olive oil.

3.5 ounces of sunflower oil.

Two teaspoons of salt.

Pepper.

Half a cup of olive oil blended with the juice of one lemon.

Water.

Grape leaves about 65 to 80 leaves.

(I added one cup of finely chopped yellow raisins and roasted pine nuts.)

 

 

 

Annie's recipe for Feuille de Vigne:

Lay flat the rinsed grape leaves, put the shiny part of the leaf facing down on the table.

In a large pan saute the finely chopped onion until transparent, you may add a touch of olive oil if need be, then add the uncooked round rice, dried mint, fennel, pepper and salt. Stir constantly. Add a touch of olive oil if need be. When the rice is transparent, and the onions are golden add the raisins and pinenuts, then add a third of a cup of water, stir often while it simmers for fifteen minutes.

Add less than a teaspoon of cooked onion/rice mixture to each grape leaf. It doesn't look like it much, and that the leaf could hold more. But DO NOT OVER STUFF, or your grape leaves will burst.

Fold the leaf, rolling it tightly. Put the end of the rolled grape leaf down in the pan.

Layer the feuille de vigne in a tight circular order. Leave a good two or three inches head room in the pan. Cover the feuille de vigne with boiling water. Add a heat resistant glass plate on top of the feuille de vigne, then add the pan lid. Bring to a boil. Then simmer for forty minutes or longer if need be.

When the feuille de vigne are cooked. Remove the lid, and plate and pour over the olive oil and lemon mixture. "This seals and stops the rice from cooking," Annie says.

Leave the feuille de vigne in the pan to cool down this will cause less breakage when taking them out of the pan.

You can store them in the fridge for a week, or in the freezer for longer.

 

 

I took a plate full to Annie's house for her approval. She was impressed with how nicely they were rolled, "You did a better job then me!" I told her she was an excellent teacher and that I had a great assitant: Alice.

Annie also added that I should have cooked the rice a bit more, but nevertheless gave me a thumbs up of approval. 

I was really pleased, and cheered, "I am Greek!"