A Grandmother’s Syrian Legacy Wrapped Up in Grape Leaves

Shared by Charles Dabah
Recipe Roots: Aleppo > Istanbul > Paris > Manchester, England > Brooklyn > Marlboro, NJ > Chicago, IL 

When Charles Dabah’s grandmother Julie Chraime was alive, “the kitchen was her domain,” Charles, a caterer in Chicago, explains. “My grandmother would cook [Shabbat] dinner every single week and whoever would come, would come — and usually it was most of my family,” Charles says. Julie would cook for 20 plus family members for dinner in her home in Brooklyn and Charles would drive over with his parents from New Jersey for the feast. 

Julie served a rotation of traditional Syrian recipes like lachmagine, a flatbread topped with meat and spices, chicken with stuffed eggplant, rice with sauces like kiftas or meatballs in a tangy tomato sauce, and salads. Yebra, or grape leaves stuffed with meat and rice and cooked slowly in a tangy sauce was one of the few dishes that made a regular appearance. “We came to expect [it] almost always,” Charles adds. 

While yebra is traditional among Jewish families who trace their heritage to Aleppo, Charles explains that his family’s rendition is unique. Ou’, the sweet and tangy sauce that the stuffed grape leaves are cooked in, is most often made with tamarind, but in his family, it’s prepared with prunes. The change in the recipe likely came out of a time when the family couldn’t find tamarind. “A new recipe was born out of necessity, and we still use it because we couldn't imagine it any other way,” he adds. 

Charles isn’t certain where his grandmother’s recipe originated, but it likely traces back to her family’s life in Aleppo. The family left Syria around 1920 for business opportunities and Julie was born in Istanbul in 1922, where the family lived for a few years before moving to Paris. In 1948, Julie moved to Manchester, England and met her husband, and ultimately moved to Brooklyn in 1951. The recipe was likely toted along during the journey, inherited from her mother or an aunt. 

When he was young, Charles had no interest in trying yebra. He was intimidated by it. In retrospect, he asks: “What could be so scary, right? Perhaps, as with all foods that are stuffed, it is the unknown of what one is biting into that puts children off.” He still remembers the evening he finally tried it in middle school and “I fell in love with yebra hard.” 

While Charles had a passion for eating the yebra, he didn’t have one for cooking it when he was young. And Julie didn’t care to share the kitchen, finding it hard to cook with others under foot, but Charles’s mom and his aunts learned the yebra recipe, making sure it was passed down to the next generation. In his community and specifically his family, Charles says, it’s uncommon for men to learn the family recipes. As an adult, he started to change that, learning Julie’s yebra from his mom, aunt and cousin, all of whom have kept Julie’s recipes alive since she passed away. 

Today, Charles doesn’t make the recipe often, but he does when he’s feeling homesick. And, his family still serves it at large gatherings at his grandfather’s home in Brooklyn. Charles explains, “As the only member of my family living outside of the New York/New Jersey area, I don't get back as often as I would like for these big family dinners. But from my home in Chicago, I take comfort in the knowledge that my grandmother passed down to my mom, and that my mom continues to pass down to me.”

Ou’ (Sweet and Tangy Prune Sauce)

Makes: 1 quart
Total time: 3 hours

Ingredients
64 ounces prune juice
2 ½  cups granulated sugar
2 ½  ounces sour salt (citric acid)

Preparation
1. Combine prune juice, sugar, and sour salt in a 4 quart pot. Place pot over high heat and stir as it comes to boil to ensure sugar dissolves. Reduce heat to low and bring the liquid to a gentle simmer. Simmer for about 3 hours, stirring occasionally, until liquid is reduced by half. 

2. Transfer to heat proof container and let cool. Ou' will thicken more as it cools. 

Cook’s Note: To store, once the ou’ is completely cool, place it in an airtight container and store it in a refrigerator. Ou’ can last up to six months in a refrigerator.

Yebra (Stuffed Grape Leaves)

Makes: 6 to 8 servings
Total time: 2 hours and 30 minutes

Ingredients
1 ½  pounds ground beef
⅓  cup short grain rice, rinsed and drained
1 ½  teaspoons ground allspice
1 ½  teaspoons kosher salt
1 tablespoon water
1 jar of grape leaves (about 36 leaves), rinsed and drained
12 dried apricots, preferably california apricots
6 to 8 garlic cloves
1 teaspoon dried mint
1 cup water
⅓ cup ou'

Preparation
1. Make the filling: Combine ground beef, rice, allspice, salt, and water in a large mixing bowl. Mix until the ingredients are combined well. 

2. Roll and stuff grape leaves:  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place one grape leaf on a cutting board or plate, vein side up. Place 1 heaping teaspoon of the meat mixture in the center of the leaf, near the stem edge. Roll the leaf end to end, starting from the stem edge. As you roll, keep tight pressure and fold the sides of the leaf toward the center. Depending on the size of your leaves, the rolled leaf should look like a small cigar 2 to 3 inches long. Transfer finished grape leaf to baking sheet, seam side down. Repeat this process with the remaining leaves and filling.

3. Place the baking sheet into the freezer for 20 to 30 minutes until the grape leaves are firm. The freezing process helps prevent grape leaves from unraveling during the cooking process.

4. In a 4 quart pot, arrange the filled grape leaves into one even layer. Make sure they are tightly pressed against one another. Evenly tuck half of the garlic cloves and apricots between the grape leaves. 

5. Repeat the process, creating a second layer of grape leaves on top of the first. Tuck the remaining garlic cloves and apricots between the grape leaves in the second layer. Sprinkle the dried mint evenly across the grape leaves. 

6. Mix the ou’ and water in a large measuring cup or bowl. Taste for balance between sweet and sour. If the mixture is not sweet enough, add 1 teaspoon of sugar and mix until dissolved. If the mixture is not sour enough, add 1 teaspoon of ou’.

7. Pour the ou’ mixture into the pot until the grape leaves are covered about three-quarters of the way. Weigh down the grape leaves with a heat-proof plate or pot lid to prevent them from floating and unraveling. Bring the pot to a simmer over medium high heat. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for about 2 ½ to 3 hours. Keep a close eye to make sure that there is liquid at the bottom of the pot. If more liquid is needed, make another batch of the ou’ and water mixture and add it into the pot. 

8. Once the yebra is cooked, there should remain about ¼ cup of liquid in the pot. Gently transfer the yebra and pan juices onto a shallow serving bowl. 

9. Serve hot.

Kiftahs (Meatballs in Sour Tomato Sauce)

Makes: 4 to 6 servings
Total time: 2 hours

Ingredients
For the sauce:
28 oz can of crushed tomatoes
1 cup water
¼ cup ou’
1 teaspoon salt

For the meatballs:
1 pound ground beef
¼  cup short-grain rice, rinsed and drained
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1 egg

Preparation
1. Make the sauce: Combine the tomatoes, water, ou’, and salt in a pot. Place over medium to high heat. Bring the mixture up to a boil and lower the heat to medium low to maintain a steady simmer. Continue to cook for about 20 to 30 minutes until the flavors combine and the sauce thickens.

2. Meanwhile make the meatballs: Combine ground beef, rice, salt, all spice and egg in a large bowl. Use your hands to mix ingredients together to ensure that they are all well distributed. Shape about ½ tablespoon of the meat mixture into a ball and tuck it into the tomato sauce in the pot. Continue shaping and placing the meatballs into the sauce. 

3. Place a lid ajar and cook the meatballs in the sauce, maintaining a simmer. Cook for about 1 hour and 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Taste sauce in the middle of cooking, and correct for salt and sweet and sour levels. Add more salt if needed, a bit of sugar if you want it sweeter, or more ou’ if you want it tangier.

4. Serve hot over white rice.

Chicken with Mehshi Sfeeha (Chicken with Stuffed Eggplants)

Makes: 6 to 8 servings
Total time: 2 hours and 30 minutes

Ingredients
1 pound ground beef 
¼ cup short grain white rice, rinsed and drained
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon water
12 dried eggplant skins
3 pound whole roasting chicken
2 tablespoons vegetable oil or other neutral oil, divided
4 to 6 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon paprika
2 teaspoons ground allspice, divided
1 eggplant, sliced into ½” rounds crosswise
Kosher salt to taste

Preparation
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Make the meat stuffing: Combine ground beef, rice, allspice, salt, and water in a large mixing bowl. Mix until all ingredients are well distributed. Set aside.

3. Rehydrate the eggplant skins: In a medium pot, bring 6 cups of water to a boil. Once boiling, carefully place the dried eggplant skins into the water and mix occasionally to make sure they are all submerged. Boil for about 5 minutes until soft. Drain the eggplants, sprinkle about ½ teaspoon of salt on each eggplant skin and set aside to cool. 

4. Stuff the eggplants: Using a teaspoon or your hands, stuff each eggplant skin with about 2 to 3 teaspoons of the meat mixture, and flatten the filling at the top edge of the eggplant skins. Set aside.

5. Prepare the fresh eggplant slices: Lay the eggplant slices on paper towels and sprinkle with salt. Let stand for 30 minutes then pat dry. Place a 10 inch skillet over medium to high heat. Add 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil into the skillet. Once oil is hot, place a single layer of eggplant slices into the pan. Fry for about 2 to 4 minutes on each side until deep golden brown. Transfer eggplants with a slotted spoon onto a paper towel-lined sheet tray to drain any excess oil. Continue frying the rest of the eggplant slices in batches.

6. In a large dutch oven or a large roasting pan, place 1 tablespoon of the vegetable oil to coat the bottom of the pot evenly. Place the stuffed eggplants in a single layer on the bottom of the pot and sprinkle 1 teaspoon of allspice on top. Lay the fried eggplant slices evenly over the stuffed eggplants.

7. Place the whole chicken over the eggplant slices, and coat the chicken evenly with the remaining  tablespoon of vegetable oil. Rub the remaining teaspoon of allspice, a generous amount of salt, and garlic all over the chicken. Place the chicken breast side down. Add enough water to the pot to cover halfway up the stuffed eggplants, about ½ cup

8. Roast uncovered in the oven for 1 hour and 30 minutes and up to 2 hours, flipping the chicken halfway between cooking, always ensuring that there is water in the pot to prevent the eggplants from burning. Remove from the oven, let the chicken and eggplants rest for 15 minutes. 

9. To serve, arrange the chicken, stuffed eggplants and fried eggplant sliced on a large serving platter. Serve hot.