Stuffed Vine Leaves from Marmara - Delicious Türkiye with Wolfgang Puck #4

Hi everyone. Welcome to Delicious Türkiye. If you have a bucket list of places to visit, Marmara region of Turkey must be on that list. The world famous city of Istanbul, the breathtaking vineyard, endless sunflower field. Marmara is just a must-see place. Now we'll cook one of the most popular dishes in the world. Stuffed wine leaves with sour cherries. Before I start, I want to talk about the region first. The Marmara region is very proud of its wine, olive oil, and special nectarine. The endless vineyards are just enough to visit this area. People use all part of the plant, including its leaf, for the stuffed wine leaf dish. This is where Istanbul is located, the city of whom we want. And among the most visited cities in the world, people love Istanbul's east, west, white. Istanbul sits on the Posphorus, the border that divides the city in half, but also that's where Europe and Asia meet. Although Istanbul is over 2,000 years old, it's called Europe's coolest city. The street food is on another level. Just because of that, people visit Istanbul. Another famous product are the chestnuts, one of my favorite ingredients. For Thanksgiving, I always use Turkish chestnuts for stuffing. Troy, where the love story of Ferris and Helen took place. If you haven't already, you can see the replica of the Trojan horse of Troy. If you ever go to Bursa, do yourself a favor and have Iskender kebab. The Uludag Mountain, they are great ski destinations. I'm gonna show you one of my favorite dishes from Turkey. It's stuffed grape leaves. It's delicious, you can eat them hot or cold, and it's easy to make. So when I go to Turkey, I always eat my grape leaves. I'm gonna show you how to make them. Well, they're stuffed with rice, but also with a lot of spices. You know, when I'm in Istanbul, I go to the spice market, and it's the most amazing experience. The smell of it, it's so great. I can't wait to go back there. So let's start with our really wonderful Samanit, our grape leaves stuffed with our rice. Okay, we have a pot here. So we're gonna heat up our stove. If it heats up, okay. Okay, now we're gonna add a little olive oil. All right, all right. And now we're gonna add some onions and a little touch of garlic. Okay, all right. We're gonna saute the onions, the garlic, and I'm gonna add some pine nuts. We're gonna cook them until they get lightly brown. Mm, smells like the spice market. It's cinnamon, we're gonna add a little cinnamon. And some dried mint. In that part of the world, we use a lot of dried mint too. It has a different flavor than the fresh one, but we will add fresh mint at the end. All right, a little more olive oil. We have a little allspice, do we have a little allspice? Okay, it's all about the spices. For me, in Turkey, everything is about the spices. The smell of it is amazing. So here I have a little allspice, cinnamon, pine nuts, onions, olive oil. I'm gonna add a few tomatoes. And the rice, two cups of rice. I soaked it in water. Okay, and salt and pepper. Okay, and this is also a really special thing from Turkey. This is sour cherries in their juice. So I'm gonna add part of the juice to my rice. Okay, and then a little bit of chicken stock or beef stock. Now we're gonna simmer the rice here for about 20 minutes. Okay, we don't wanna overcook it, so 20 minutes should be good. You also can put it in the oven. And here are my grape leaves. We cut off the stems, because they are hard. Turkey has amazing grape leaves. They are really, really delicious and tender. We soak them overnight and then rinse them really well. So because they are salted, we don't wanna have salty grape leaves. All right. But to me, Turkey is all about great food. I love it there because they have so many different regions. You get so many different dishes. It's really an exciting place if you're a chef or if you love great food. You know, people talk always about Italy and France, but Turkey is second to none. All right, grape leaves are done. I have a few left over. I'm gonna put them in my pan. Smells delicious. Wow, I can't wait to eat my stuffed grape leaves. All right, grape leaves are ready. And here, we have some fresh herbs. In Turkey, we use a lot of mint, dill, and parsley. So I'm gonna chop that and add it to my rice at the end. Here is the dill. And I'm gonna leave a few for garnish. Parsley. Just cut it off. Amazing fresh mint. Now we're gonna chop that. Turkey is really underrated for their food. They have the freshest seafood, the most amazing produce. Perfect. All right, now we are almost ready. Let's look at our rice. See if it's cooked a little bit. Three more minutes and my rice is done and then we can stuff our grape leaves. All right. I have a little pan here. We're gonna line the pan with a few of the leaves. Leftover leaves, stems, whatever you have. Okay. Okay, look at that. Ready. Now, with the rice, I'm gonna finish it. I'm gonna add the sour cherries, a few of them, and save a few for afterwards. Okay. All right. And here is my chopped parsley, mint, and dill. I'm gonna add it to my rice. Now I'm gonna mix them in here. And maybe I'm gonna add a little bit more spice, a little touch of cinnamon. Okay, a little touch of sugar. Okay. Look at that, how beautiful. You could eat it just like that. Okay, and now I'm gonna let the rice get infused with all the herbs and spices for a few more minutes. Our rice is perfectly done. Not too much. It still has a little bite to it, so this way the rice will cook at the end in the oven in the great plate. Okay, so now we are ready to stuff our great plate. You see, beautiful, you devein them. And you always put where the veins are, where the stems are, in the inside. Okay, now let's take a spoonful of our rice. Just a little more. All right. And we're gonna fold that over nicely and make a little package. Fold it here. Perfectly, okay, see that? So now we have a little packet here. Gonna put it in our pan. Okay. All right. I like the cooking here in Turkey. So many vegetables too. And seafood is my favorite. Okay. Now we are ready to cook our stuffed grape leaves here. So I'm gonna add a little lemon juice and then olive oil. All right, maybe a little bit of our cherry juice here, the sour cherry juice. A little water. All right, let's turn on the fire here. That's off. My stuffed grape leaves are ready. I am gonna bring them to a boil here and then put them in the oven. Simple for 30 minutes and you're gonna have the best appetizer ever. All right, you can see the pan is boiling. We're gonna cover it up and we're gonna put it in the oven. I just put my grape leaves in the oven. It's gonna take 30 minutes and then you're gonna have delicious grape leaves stuffed with rice and sour cherries and all the spices. Just amazing. All right, our grape leaves should be cooked by now. Let's see. It smells delicious. All right, so we let them cool down and then we can serve them. We eat the grape leaves at room temperature. All right. And I'm gonna drizzle them with a little olive oil. Okay. Et voila. Our beautiful stuffed grape leaves. Afiyet olsun. Please watch the other episodes of Delicious Turkey and do not forget to subscribe to Go Turkey, YouTube account and follow it on social media.