Dolmadakia Yialantzi

Greece 105 min total Serves 6 Medium

Greece Village Recipes Vegetarian Easter Recipes Street Food

the history —

How this dish came to life

Dolmadakia are older than the word for them. Long before they were called dolmádes — a name the Ottoman Empire would give them centuries later — the ancient Greeks made them and called them thría. They used fig leaves, not vines, and they ate them at banquets and in the long evenings of the Athenian summer. Aristophanes wrote about them. There is even a quiet old legend that, somewhere on the Parthenon frieze, the goddess Hera is depicted secretly eating one — caught in a stolen moment of pleasure between the gods. Later, at a banquet held in honour of Alexander the Great in the 4th century BCE, the wrapping switched from fig to grape leaf, and the form that survived into the modern Greek table was born. But the strangest, most beautiful chapter of this dish came much later. During the dark years of the Greek Enlightenment, when Greece was still under Ottoman rule and the Greek language was being slowly suffocated out of public life, the scholar Adamantios Korais — exiled in Paris — translated the great works of European philosophy into Greek so that his countrymen, enslaved and forbidden from reading them, could be educated in secret. He needed a way to smuggle the pages home. He folded them into dolmadakia. The little parcels of rice and vine leaf travelled by ship and by donkey into the hands of teachers, monks and revolutionaries, who unrolled them at night by oil lamp, read the words of Rousseau and Voltaire in their own language, and rolled the pages back up again before morning. Dolmadakia, for a brief and dangerous decade, became a tool of resistance — and were eventually banned by the Ottoman authorities. They returned to the Greek table only after the Revolution of 1821, when the country was free, and the rolled vine leaf could once again hold nothing more dangerous than rice. My yiayia knew none of this when she taught me how to make them, on a Sunday morning in her courtyard, the kitchen door open to the lemon tree. She just said: 'Tight, but not too tight. They need a little space to breathe.' I think about that every time I roll one.

Cultural significance

Dolmadakia are one of the oldest dishes in the recorded Greek kitchen — descended from the ancient thría made with fig leaves and present at the table of Alexander the Great. The 'yialantzi' version (Turkish/Asia Minor for 'liar' or 'mock' — meaning meatless) developed among the Greeks of Pontus and Asia Minor, who preferred rice to lamb. The dish carries within it 2,500 years of Greek history, Asia-Minor migration, Ottoman influence, and — most movingly — the secret revolutionary scholarship of Adamantios Korais during the Greek Enlightenment. To eat one is to eat a thread of Greek memory.

now let's cook

step by step

Instructions

1
If using fresh vine leaves: blanch them in salted boiling water for 60 seconds, drain, and pat dry. If using jarred: rinse thoroughly under cold water to remove excess brine, then drain.
2
Heat 3 tbsp of the olive oil in a wide pan over medium heat. Sauté the onion, garlic and spring-onion whites with a pinch of salt for 5–6 minutes until soft and golden — never browned.
3
Stir in the rice and toast it in the oil for 1 minute, until the grains turn translucent at the edges.
4
Add the grated tomato, the cumin, a generous pinch of salt and plenty of black pepper, and a small splash of water (about 100ml). Simmer gently for 5 minutes until the rice is just half-cooked and the liquid has been absorbed. The filling should still be loose.
5
Off the heat, fold in the parsley, dill, mint, lemon zest and the juice of 1 lemon. Taste and adjust salt. This is your filling.
6
Lay a vine leaf shiny-side down on a board, stem closest to you, and snip off the stem. Place a small teaspoon of filling near the stem end. Fold the bottom two flaps over the filling, then fold the sides in, and roll up tightly but gently — like a little cigar. Don't overfill; the rice will swell as it cooks.
7
Line the bottom of a wide, heavy pot with a layer of tough or torn vine leaves, a few herb stems, and 3–4 thin slices of lemon — this protects the dolmadakia from sticking and perfumes the broth.
8
Pack the dolmadakia snugly into the pot, seam-side down, in concentric circles. Build a second layer on top if needed. Tuck them in tightly — they shouldn't move when the broth is added.
9
Drizzle the remaining olive oil over the dolmadakia. Pour in the juice of the second lemon and enough hot water to just barely cover them — about 400ml. Place a heavy plate, upside down, on top to weigh them and keep them still.
10
Cover the pot, bring to a gentle simmer over low heat, and cook for 40–45 minutes, until the rice inside is fully tender and the broth is mostly absorbed.
11
While they cook, stir the yogurt sauce together: yogurt, lemon juice, dill, olive oil, a pinch of salt. Refrigerate.
12
Once cooked, take the pot off the heat and rest, covered, for 15 minutes — this is when the dolmadakia drink the last of the lemony oil.
13
Arrange on a wide blue plate (the Greek way), garnish with extra dill and lemon wedges, and serve warm or at room temperature with the cold yogurt sauce on the side.

tips from the village —

Wisdom from grandmothers

01Don't overfill. A teaspoon of rice per leaf is plenty — the rice swells, and an overstuffed dolma splits open as it cooks.
02Roll tightly enough to hold their shape, but with a little give — Yiayia's instinct: 'they need a little space to breathe.'
03The plate on top of the pot during simmering is essential. It keeps the dolmadakia submerged and stops them unrolling.
04Dolmadakia are even better the next day, eaten cold straight from the fridge with cold yogurt. Make them ahead of any party.
05If using jarred vine leaves, taste one first — if very salty, soak in cold water for 10 minutes before rolling.

watch us cook —

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