Jet-lagged but wide-eyed at all there was to take in in New York, we hopped on the subway from Manhattan to Brooklyn to be welcomed into a small apartment by a lady with a big heart. She swung open the door to her home and exclaimed, ‘What beautiful girls,’ before demanding we glug tea (foraged herbs from her native mountain home, including wild mint and dried roses) and guzzle down a lavash she’d just whipped up.
The lavash, a sort of bread pocket filled with herbed meat, which resembles a flattened calzone, is what Maral describes as a ‘snack’ – but we were full after sharing just one. While we ate, she moved. She danced around her teeny kitchen for four hours, chopping up, whizzing up, rubbing in, marinating, bubbling and stirring until we were seated at a table laden with far too much food for three.
We ate: lamb dolma, which Maral got us to prepare, sticking our tentative hands into a great bowl of meat, chopped onions and herbs, before we extracted small balls of it to wrap in wet vine leaves. Also on the menu were peppers and tomatoes stuffed with lamb and fresh bread, rolled and griddled just moments before we dined. This was all swilled down with vodka, the climax of our afternoon being an Azerbaijani dance-off in the living room. Hours later, we escaped into the cool winter air of Brooklyn, our cheeks flushed and our hearts as full as our stomachs.
‘Don’t stay in a hotel and spend your money; next time, you stay with me,’ she said, waving us off.
Feeds 4–6
Takes 1 hour
Ingredients
250g lamb mince
250g beef mince
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 small potato, finely diced
2 tbsp fresh dill, chopped
2 tbsp fresh coriander, chopped
1 tsp paprika
30-ish vine leaves
½ quince or one small apple, roughly chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled
Method
Place the meat, onion, potato, herbs and paprika in a bowl. Season and combine with your hands.
Take your vine leaves one by one and put a small ball of meat mixture in the bottom part of the leaf. Then, starting from the right-hand side and working round, fold the leaf in on itself until it covers the meat.
Place the finished stuffed leaves into a saucepan as you go, packing them so the leaf is secure and won’t unwrap.
When they’re all done, place the quince or apple pieces and garlic on top. Add cold water halfway up the saucepan and turn the heat up high until it comes to the boil. Then lower the heat to a simmer and cook for 30–40 minutes, until cooked though.
