How to Choose and Preserve Grape Leaves

May is the month for grape leaves, and both picking them and putting them up properly take some care. Get either wrong and you will be rolling sarma with leaves that stay tough no matter how long you cook them.

How to choose grape leaves

Look for thin, pale leaves. Dark, thick leaves are older and less flavorful, they take far longer to cook, and they produce a chewy sarma rather than a tender one.

Check the veins. They should be fine rather than prominent, and there should not be too many of them. Heavy veining means the leaf is past its best.

Take only whole leaves. Anything torn or bruised will fall apart when you roll it.

Pick from the top of the vine. The newest growth gives you the youngest, thinnest leaves — and it is worth going out early in the season rather than waiting.

How to preserve them in brine

Brining is the method, and it is used everywhere for a reason: leaves put up this way are as good in January as they were the day they were picked.

Stack the leaves in bundles of 10 to 15, shiny side up, with the smooth surfaces facing each other. Lay the bundles in a wide, fairly deep tray.

Bring water and salt to a boil — a heavy brine, about 1/4 cup of salt per quart of water. Pour the boiling brine over the bundles until they are fully covered.

Leave them in the hot brine for 2 to 3 hours.

Lift them out and squeeze the liquid out gently, without tearing them. Fold each bundle in half, still gently.

Pack the folded bundles into a clean glass jar, pressing them in tightly. The jar should be full with as little air as possible.

Pour fresh, well-salted brine over them until covered, and set a clean weight on top — a small stone or a glass weight — to keep everything below the surface. Anything above the liquid line will spoil.

Seal tightly and store somewhere cool and dark.

Before using

Rinse the leaves well and soak them in cold water for 20 to 30 minutes to draw out the salt. Taste one before you start rolling — if it is still aggressively salty, change the water and soak again.

Chef’s note

If you cannot find fresh leaves at all, jarred ones are widely available in Middle Eastern and Greek grocers. They are already brined, so they still need the soaking step above, and they tend to be saltier than anything you put up yourself.