Thread: Syrian recipes
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Old 07-31-2006, 12:36 PM   #26
Beauty4Ashes
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Default Re: Syrian recipes

Sorry it took me so long to type out how to make grape leaves...but I'm throwing in a recipe for stuffed squash absolutely free

That is what I am cooking tonight. It's a kind of complicated dish, I have yet to get it 100% correct, but here goes.

The filling works for both the stuffed grape leaves and the stuffed squash...

Filling:

1 1/2 cups Medium grain rice

2 lamb shoulder blades (lamb chops???)**I prefer to use the Australian lamb chops or spring lamb, as it is not so fatty as the American lamb chops. If you don't have lamb, you can use ground beef**

3-4 tbsp. cumin seed
salt and pepper to taste
3-4 cloves of garlic crushed with some salt.

Soak the rice for an hour in water and clean it. Remove the meat from the bones of the lamb chop and put the meat in the food processor to grind it. Save the bones from the lamb chops. Mix the cumin seed, salt, pepper, and meat with the rice. If you are using ground beef, you will need to add some butter or margarine, maybe 1-2 tbsp. and mix it with the lamb/rice/spice mixture. Do not cook!!!

Refrigerate the filling overnight, for the best flavor.

For the grape leaves, buy a jar of Orlando Grape Leaves. It's a 2 lb. jar and it's $4-5. Remove the grape leaves from the jar and rinse them with water. Squeeze the excess liquid from them. Cut the stems with a knife. If you want, cut the leaves in 2 pieces, using the middle vein of the grape leave as your guide for cutting. Put 1/2 tsp. of the filling on the grape leave--vein side up. Fold the grape leave from the two ends (the longer, less wide part) together. Then roll the wider part of the grape leave, as you would roll a cigarette. The ideal is to make the grape leaves of a uniform size and thickness, like small thin cigars, but if I am in a rush, they don't turn out that way. Repeat over and over and over again. I might use half a jar of grape leaves for a meal, it makes close to 100. After you have say 10-15 grape leaves finished, tie them into bundles with string.

For the stuffed squash, dh bought me a dozen of the smallest spanish squashes that he could find, because they have the best flavor. They are light green in color. Cut off the stems. With an instrument that looks like a ducks bill, scoop out the insides of the squash. The goal is to not poke any holes in the sides or bottom of the squashes and to make inner walls of the squash as thin as possible. Stuff the filling inside the squash. Use pieces of the inside of the squash as a cork. Do not fill the squash all the way to the top, leave about 3/4" of space unfilled.

To cook the squash and grape leaves:
You will need a really large pot, say a 3-4 qt. pot. Arrange the squash and the grape leaves neatly in the bottom of the pot. Fill the pot with enough water to cover. Crush several cloves of garlic with some salt and add to the water. Add the juice of 1 lemon. Add one lamb chop and the left over bones from the lamb chop used in the filling. Put a bowl turned up side down on top of the squash and grape leaves. Put a cup filled with water on the bowl. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer. Put a lid on the pot. Allow to cook for 3-4 hours.

These are dishes that the women begin at least one day in advance and they stuff grape leaves while the dc are in bed and they are watching t.v. It's a very social thing among the women. If they have company coming and have to make many grape leaves or stuffed squash, they may be working on these dishes for several nights before cooking it.


__________________
Tammy--ISTJ
wife to AbuBa(6/2001)

mom to B (6/2004)
D (6/2005)
L 4/2008
R 9/2015

Isaiah 61:3 To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that they might be glorified.
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