Name: Our Dolmades
Yield: Serves 8
Ingredients: 1 tsp ground cinnamon; pinch of hot paprika or chilli flakes; freshly ground black pepper to taste; ¼ tsp ground allspice; 60 g butter; 100 g dates (¾ cup), pitted and chopped; 250 g basmati rice (roughly 1⅓ cups); 1¾ cup chicken stock; orange zest for garnish; a little olive oil; ½ cup flaked almonds, plus 3 tbsp extra for garnish, toasted; 30 g Italian parsley, shredded; 16 pickled vine leaves, plus a few extra for spares (from Mediterranean delis and larger supermarkets or make your own very simply); ¼ cup pine nuts, lightly toasted; flaked sea salt to taste; orange peel, a long strip from a whole orange

Preparation info

Serves
8

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Set a Table

By Karen Dudley

Published 2018

About

Our home in Woodstock is one with an interesting history. Built by the British army in 1895, it has been lived in by Jewish, Portuguese and Malay families. Our street was a Group Areas boundary and families sold houses to each other in order to remain on the same street. When we bought the house we also inherited: a beautiful plaque of Saint Anthony (the saint of good husbands and lost causes), beneath which my Sweetheart proposed to me; an orange tree; a cutting table that has ever since b