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Warak enab & mahshi
Also known as ورق عنب · warak inab · mahshi · stuffed vine leaves
Vine leaves and small courgettes stuffed with herbed rice, braised in a lemony broth until soft. Delicate, tart, eaten in twos and threes.
Typical serving
430 kcal
usually 340–550 kcal
 Protein | 12 g |
|---|---|
 Carbs | 64 g |
 Fat | 14 g |
Reference figures for a dish as it is commonly cooked — never a measurement of your plate. The range is the honest part: two kitchens make this differently. In the app, a photograph replaces the guess.
Before you start
- a jar or packet of vine leaves
- a heavy plate that fits inside your pot, to weigh them down
- an afternoon — rolling forty of these is the dish and it does not hurry
Ingredients
Serves 4 · dimmer marks are storecupboard
- 250gshort-grain rice
- 40vine leaves — from a jar, rinsed of their brine
- 4small courgettes
- 4 tbspolive oil
- 2tomatoes
- 1onion
- 1 large bunchmint and flat parsley
- 2lemons
- 2 tspallspice, cinnamon and black pepper
Method
7 steps
soak · 10m walk awayVine leaves rinsed and left in hot water to lose their brine, then patted dry and stacked.
chop · 20mHerbs, onion and tomatoes chopped fine, and the courgettes hollowed out with a corer or a narrow spoon, leaving the walls thin but unbroken.
fold · 6mRinsed rice mixed raw with the herbs, onion, tomato, spices, half the oil and the juice of one lemon. It stays uncooked — it swells in the pot.
- fold · 45m
A teaspoon of filling on each leaf, sides in, rolled tight but not full. Overfilled parcels burst; that is the only way this goes wrong. Courgettes filled two-thirds.
simmer · 50m walk awayPacked in tight layers, a plate on top to hold them down, water and lemon just to cover, and the lowest possible simmer.
rest · 20m walk awayOff the heat, still weighted, twenty minutes. Lifted hot they fall apart.
finish · 3mThe rest of the oil and the second lemon over them, and eaten warm or cold rather than hot.
Worth knowing
Rolling mahshi is a communal afternoon in most Levantine households — the dish measures the patience of the house, not the skill of one cook.
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