Grape Leaves

I am trying to prune the grapes so that they don’t take over the vegetable beds. This is a bigger job than it ought to be, because we missed our chance to prune them in the winter. We are certainly learning from our mistake, and plan to be better organised next winter! The grapes are now a beautiful, rampant, tangled mess, and I am struggling to sort through it all in order to prune. According to our neighbour, who has a great many grape vines of the same variety as ours, doing plenty of fix-up pruning now will give us the best chance of having a decent crop despite our negligence over the winter.


More grape leaves, please

Since I am pruning the grapes, it’s a good opportunity to make pickled grape leaves. Here is the recipe I used to make an inauthentic version of “Podonnip Chorim,” or Grape Leaf Kimchi:

Grape Leaf Kimchi
36 tender young grape leaves, stalks on, washed thoroughly
1 tablespoon sea salt

4 tablespoons whey*

2 cloves garlic, minced or finely chopped

1/4 teaspoon chile flakes

2 teaspoons fresh ginger, grated or very finely chopped

Mix whey, salt, and 2 cups of water. Soak the grape leaves in this mixture for about an hour, weighting them down so that the liquid covers them completely.

Roll up 12 of the leaves, all together, and stuff them into a wide mouthed 1 quart (1 litre) preserving jar. Sprinkle with some of the ginger, garlic and chile. Roll up 12 more leaves into another roll. Stuff this roll in the preserving jar on top of the first one. Sprinkle with seasonings. Do the same with the final 12 grape leaves.

Now pour the whey/water/salt mixture into the jar on top of the leaves, so that they are completely covered. Add a little water if necessary. Make sure you leave an inch of space at the top of the jar, as the contents may expand.

Cover the jar tightly and leave at room temperature for 3 days. If necessary, put a weight on top of the leaves to keep them immersed in the liquid. After 3 days, move the jar to the fridge of cold room for storage.

*To make whey, put some plain live yoghurt in a cloth and leave it to drain over a large bowl. The liquid that drains out of the yoghurt is the whey you need for this recipe.

In Korea, they don’t use whey to innoculate their kimchi. Also, I think that they add rice porridge and fish sauce to some kinds of kimchi, but I’m not certain about that! I intend to do some research on this matter, and will be sure to write about it if I end up making fish sauce and rice porridge and adding them to future batches of kimchi. (I think Kevin has some serious concerns about sharing the house with any kind of fermented fish project, so I will have to tread carefully in this matter!)

As well as making one batch of spicy grape leaf pickle, I’ve made a second plainer batch — omitting all the seasonings except for the salt and whey. These can be used for making dolmades.


Dolmades

One way to serve the Korean-style pickled grape leaves is with sticky rice, whole lettuce leaves, chile sauce, toasted sesame seeds, and pieces of cooked marinated beef (marinate in honey, garlic, soy sauce, and a little fresh citrus juice). Diners can use the lettuce and/or grape leaves to make little parcels of the other items. Yum!

We humans are not the only Farmlet creatures who enjoy eating grape leaves. The goats love them, too. I tethered them in the yard while I was pruning, so that they could munch to their hearts’ content on discarded grape leaves.

6 Responses to “Grape Leaves”

  1. jenny says:

    What a great recipe- thanks! I am overun with wild grapes here in South Carolina; I hesitated to prune them, not knowing what to do with all the result (seemed such a waste!) but this will use them up quite handily!

  2. Rebecca says:

    Hi Jenny,
    I hope you’ll enjoy eating some of your grape leaves. Thanks for your comment.
    Rebecca

  3. Judy says:

    Do you have any idea if the type of grape leaf makes a difference in the taste of the pickle? For instance, do the leaves of a grape for wine such as a cabernet leaf impart a different taste than say the leaf of a white grape?

  4. Rebecca says:

    Hi Judy,
    I actually have no idea if the type of grape would make any difference to the flavour of the pickled leaves, since we’ve only tried the one variety. It would be interesting to know if different varieties of grape leaf produce a different taste.
    All the best.
    Rebecca

  5. robert says:

    Hi, There is a definate difference in taste from different leaves. I have used grape leaves on only two picklings that worked great. In twenty years 18 misses by wrong leaf.
    Would love to know which one is the best, because when you find it, pickles are to die for. Any help on leaf selecion for pickles. Thanks

  6. robert says:

    Hi, I obtained leave in Dillard, Or one time. Grower pointed to row of grapes in which to use leaves, said the others do not work. He was 100% right! The leaves he turned me on to were fabulous. No vines and grower gone. What to do? Please, Please help me!