How to pickle grape leaves for the winter - the best recipe

When chefs offer dozens of recipes for pickling grape leaves, they are being a little disingenuous. Of course, you can pickle cucumbers in grape leaves, but this is just a recipe for pickling cucumbers. Such leaves are not suitable for preparing dolma. They will become too saturated with the taste of cucumbers and will ruin the traditional taste of dolma. One recipe for pickling grape leaves for the winter is enough, because this is just a component of the dish, and completely different ingredients will give it taste.

Ingredients: grape leaves, salt
Time to bookmark: Summer, Autumn

When pickling grape leaves for the winter, it is important to achieve a neutral taste. Additional spices in this case can only harm the product. This neutral taste comes from salt, and only salt. Peppercorns, mustard, garlic, in this case, put it all in place.

Prepare the grape leaves. These should be young leaves from white or pink grape varieties. These leaves have fewer veins and are more delicate. The tails can be trimmed or not. They are not very convenient for rolling rolls, but they are very convenient for pulling salted leaves out of the jar.

Rinse the leaves in cool water and place them in a saucepan. Boil water separately and pour boiling water over the young leaves. The leaves need to be soaked in boiling water for 1-2 minutes, after which, drain the water back into the pan.

Wait for the leaves to cool and roll them 5-10 pieces into rolls.

Depending on the number of leaves, jars should be prepared.If your family loves dolma, you need a lot of leaves. Place the rolls in bottles as tightly as possible.

Add salt to the water that you drained at the rate of:

2 tbsp. l. salt per 1 liter of water.

Dissolve salt in water and pour it over the leaves, all the way to the top. There is no need to boil the brine, it’s already boiled, isn’t it?

Place the bottle with the leaves in a plate and cover it with a lid. Do not close, but cover, or use special lids with holes.

The grape leaves should stand in a warm place for about two weeks, during which time they will ferment and become salted. After this, the jar needs to be taken out to a cool place and closed with a regular nylon lid.

If the brine leaks out somewhat during fermentation, it needs to be added so that it completely covers the leaves.