“My entire family loves stuffed grape leaves (also known as sarma or yalanchi), but the process of stuffing the rice filling into finicky leaves can be tedious. The same goes for kufteh, Armenian meat and bulgur stuffed meatballs – a traditional but time-consuming recipe that requires the careful shaping of the outer shell and stuffing it with filling. Luckily, there is a short-cut version for kufteh called sini kufteh. It is prepared by alternating layers of the shell and filling ingredients in a pan or ‘sini,’ then baking it. No shaping or stuffing involved,” says Robyn Kalajian.
“This layering technique isn’t new so I thought, why not apply it to the grape leaves and rice recipe,” she adds. “If you’re wondering how the name, Shirdov Sini Sarma came about, I was looking for a name that depicted the preparation process for layering the grape leaves and rice so I contacted our friend, Charles Kasbarian for his expert advice regarding terminology and language.* He suggested, “One Armenian word for layer is shird. Thus, Shird-Sini-Sarma would capture all three concepts of this recipe: ‘Shird’ for layer, ‘Sini’ for pan, and ‘Sarma’ for leaves and the filling.”
“If you’ve made stuffed grape leaves, you know that prepping the grape leaves is time-consuming. It’s the same for this recipe. The difference is once the grape leaves are ready to use, you simply layer the grape leaves and filling ingredients into a baking pan, thus eliminating the stuffing and rolling steps. Then you pop the pan into the oven – it’s that easy. The best part is you get the taste of your wonderful stuffed grape leaves, without the extra work,” she adds. Here’s Robyn’s simplified baked-in-the-pan version of stuffed grape leaves that is the perfect crowd-pleaser for any lunch, dinner or upcoming celebration:
PREP TIME: 50 mins
COOK TIME: 1 hr. 5 mins
TOTAL TIME: 1 hr. 55 mins
