If you live around the Mediterranean, then this needs no introduction. But for everyone else, Dolmades or Dolmathes are vine leaves stuffed with rice and vegetables or even meat. How does it taste like? We will find out.
I took one with my not-so-Mediterranean chopsticks, closed my eyes and took a bite.
I was in ancient Greece. My name was Archie. I was beginning to take a bath. I took off my clothes and climbed into the tub. As I lowered myself into the water, I noticed the water level rising. Hmm…
Eureka! Eureka!
This is it! I have been trying to figure out how many grain of rice to fit into each vine leave to make Dolmades. I know the volume of the space when the vine leaves are rolled up. But it was difficult to find the volume of all the rice to know how many to use. If my hypothesis is correct, I just need to submerge the rice into water and measure the volume of the displaced water to find out.
Which is what I did. And I made my Dolmades without wasting a single grain of rice. Amazing!
With my Dolmades made, I took a bite. The vine leaves were quite thick. There were some rice inside but I would have preferred slightly more rice to really feel and taste the rice filling. The taste was a bit sour. I’m not a Dolmades expert but this is way off the mark compared to some others that I’ve tasted before.
Hmm… Maybe measuring the exact volume of the rice was not the secret to making good Dolmades. Well, perhaps someone will find this technique useful in the future. Maybe to measure other things, like gold.
I bought this with my own money from Habitat, Singapore.