Wild Grape Leaves and Dolmas

After a bike ride on a local trail, Evo sent me photos of wild grapes he found.

He also found elderberry, black raspberries, and mulberry along the trail so we made a plan to head back the following weekend to see what we could forage.

We watched Amy Schumer’s newest documentary, “Expecting”, and Evo bought her husband’s cookbook, “The Beetlebung Farm Cookbook by Chris Fischer with Catherine Young”. It had a recipe for pork sausage-stuffed dolmas that Evo wanted to try. So out we went to forage wild grape leaves!

Wild grapes off of a bike trail

We brought a few paper lunch bags and a jar - I was looking for wild blackberries, but no luck - and only walked a few steps into the trail before we found vine after vine, sprawling onto anything that would hold its weight. The vines covered bushes, trees, old telephone poles. We were excited to see the grapes grew fuller than the last time we saw them. We tasted a couple and the skin was a little bitter still but the juicy inside was starting to get sweet! I’m planning to collect several gallons and make wine and jelly with them once they are fully ripe!

How to identify: Look for large, somewhat glossy leaves with serrated edges on a vine… the grapes will be a dead give-away.

Once we got home, we started boiling a large pot of salted water. Evo rinsed the leaves and pulled off any bugs (it’s the middle of July in Northern Illinois and the bugs are terrible!) before he put them in the pot of boiling water. After 30 seconds he pulled them out - but in hindsight he thought he could have left them in for another 15-30 seconds longer to soften them up a bit more. He placed them in a bowl of ice water for a minute or two then rinsed them again.

Roll ‘em up!

Then the fun began! One by one, Evo rolled a small amount of ground pork into a grape leaf and rolled it up. After they were all rolled and placed in our cast iron pan, he topped them with olive oil, garlic, and sliced lemons then put them over medium heat on the stove top. He covered them and cooked for a few minutes on each side.

Pork sausage-stuffed dolmas made with foraged wild grape leaves

They were delicious! We will probably season them differently next time but overall they were great! We ate them with my homemade carrot-top pesto pasta and a cucumber tomato salad. Yum!

Dinner is served

The next time you’re out on a trail, be sure to look up and see if you can spot some wild grapes!