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Well, well, well. This was better than I expected, and it wasn’t as much work as I expected either. But there are a couple of things that were a bit frustrating about it.
For starters, you cannot find grape leaves in the store. I scoured every grocery store in a 15 mile radius. I finally caved and got them from Amazon. And they were not cheap even with Prime free shipping.
Once they got here and I opened the jar I was faced with some pretty ingenious child-proofing … or something. You can see it in the picture. There was a strainer in the top that also kept the rolled up grape leaves tightly packed in. The thing is, it’s a round strainer that is larger than the round opening and its made of fairly hard plastic. You would think there would be instructions on the jar but apparently everyone in Lebanon, where they were packed, learns how to do this in grade school. No instructions anywhere. I scraped my fingers up trying to extricate it before it finally bent enough to pull it out.
Lastly, the grape leaves are tightly rolled up and are pretty fragile. I had plenty of torn ones to use as the base and cover leaves. Not sure if this is accurate or not, but they seemed to do better unrolling without tearing when done under cold running water.
It was fun, and looks impressive when finished, but I don’t think I will be doing this one again.
