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Sami Tamimi’s recipes for aubergine dolma bake with a spicy herb and spinach salad

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July 8, 2026 · 1:16 PM
Sami Tamimi’s recipes for aubergine dolma bake with a spicy herb and spinach salad

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Sami Tamimi’s aubergine dolma bake with a spicy herb and spinach salad. Photograph: Beca Jones/The Guardian

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Sami Tamimi’s aubergine dolma bake with a spicy herb and spinach salad. Photograph: Beca Jones/The Guardian

Food

Sami Tamimi’s recipes for aubergine dolma bake with a spicy herb and spinach salad

This comforting dish gives all the pleasure of stuffed vine leaves without the hours of labour. Serve alongside a lemony salad that’s rich with toasted seeds

Sami Tamimi

Wed 8 Jul 2026 01.00 EDT

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I wanted the comfort of dolma without spending hours coring, stuffing and rolling. Traditionally, for this Iraqi dish of vine leaves, various vegetables are filled with fragrant rice and often with meat, too, making it a true labour of love. This pie captures all those familiar flavours but, by layering everything instead, the vine leaves become silky and tender. A bright, lemony spinach salad adds freshness and contrast.

Aubergine dolma bake

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Prep 20 min

Cook 2 hr 15 min****Cool 20 min

Serves 6

2 large aubergines(900g), cut lengthways into ½cm-thick slices

**Olive oil

Salt****Pomegranate seeds**, to serve

Yoghurt, to serve (vegan, if need be; optional)

For the filling10-12 vine leaves in brine(40g), rinsed, dried and roughly chopped

1 red onion, peeled and finely chopped (150g)

3 large garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

**2 tsp****baharat

½ tsp ground turmeric**

**⅓****tsp ground black pepper

2 tbsp tomato paste

2 tbsp pomegranate molasses

2 tbsp lemon juice

350g Egyptian rice** (or pudding or risotto rice, as an alternative)

30g mint leaves, finely shredded

50g flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped, plus extra picked leaves to garnish

10g coriander, finely chopped1 tsp freshly ground coffee

For the sauce

**900ml boiling water

80ml lemon juice

2 tbsp tomato paste

Black pepper**

Heat the oven to 220C (200C fan)/425F/gas 7 and line two large baking trays with greaseproof paper. Lay the aubergine slices on the lined trays, brush generously with olive oil and sprinkle with salt on both sides. Roast for 20 minutes, flipping the slices once halfway, until they are golden brown, then remove from the oven.

Turn down the oven to 200C (180C fan)/390F/gas 6 and line a high-sided, roughly 22cm x 35cm oven dish with baking paper.

To make the filling, put all the remaining filling ingredients in a large bowl, add two tablespoons of olive oil and one and a half teaspoons of salt, and mix well.

Line the base of the oven dish with just under half the roast aubergine slices, laying them in at a slight angle and just overlapping slightly, so they completely cover the base of the dish. Spoon over the filling, spread it out in an even layer, then top with another layer of aubergine slices, again overlapping them slightly so they cover the filling.

Whisk all the ingredients for the sauce with one and a half teaspoons of salt and a good grind of black pepper, then slowly pour this all over the aubergine bake (it should cover the top), then seal the dish tightly with tin foil. Put the dish on an oven tray (in case of leakage) and bake for 90 minutes, until the liquid is mostly absorbed and the rice is completely cooked through. Remove from the oven – don’t lift off the foil just yet – and leave to rest for 20 minutes.

Remove the foil, then carefully invert the pie on to a large platter. Sprinkle with the pomegranate seeds and a few parsley leaves, and serve warm or at room temperature with the spicy herb and spinach salad below and a good spoonful of yoghurt, if desired.

Spicy herb and spinach salad

Prep 15 min

Cook 10 min

Serves 4

2 lemons, 1 squeezed to get 1 tbsp juice, the other left whole 20g flat-leaf parsley, leaves picked (with some soft stems attached)

**10g picked tarragon leaves

15g picked dill leaves

15g mint leaves**, roughly torn

4 spring onions (60g), trimmed and thinly sliced at a sharp angle

100g baby spinach leaves

1½ tbsp olive oil

For the seeds

½ tsp white sesame seeds, toasted

½ tsp nigella seeds, toasted

20g pumpkin seeds, toasted

1½ tsp coriander seeds, toasted and roughly crushed in a mortar

½ tsp aleppo chilli flakes, or ¼ tsp regular chilli flakes

Flak****y sea salt and black pepper

Put all the ingredients for the seeds in a bowl with a quarter-teaspoon of flaky sea salt, and mix to combine.

Using a small, sharp knife, trim both ends off the whole lemon, then cut down along its round curves, removing the skin and white pith as you go. Release the lemon segments by slicing between the membranes, then roughly chop the flesh. Put this in a large bowl, add the lemon juice, parsley, tarragon, dill, mint, spring onions, spinach, oil, a teaspoon of flaky sea salt and a good grind of pepper, and mix well.

Add half the seed mixture to the spinach bowl and mix to combine. Transfer to a platter or individual plates, top with the remaining seeds and serve at once.

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Comments (26)

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  • [Mealiepudding](https://profile.theguardian.com/user/id/4406963) [49 minutes ago](https://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/175115879)   [Mealiepudding](https://profile.theguardian.com/user/id/4406963) [49 minutes ago](https://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/175115879)      1     These recipes aren't quite in my postcode, too many ingredients forcing the flavour. [Reply](https://profile.theguardian.com/signin?returnUrl=https://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/175115879&componentEventParams=componentType%3Didentityauthentication%26componentId%3Dsignin_to_reply_comment)

  • pavanne 4 hours ago pavanne 4 hours ago 1 This looks interesting. I have several grapevines, wondering if fresh leaves would work here (even though it is summer and they are no longer as tender as they were). Reply

    • [Crispy01](https://profile.theguardian.com/user/id/105798786) [4 hours ago](https://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/175111664)   [Crispy01](https://profile.theguardian.com/user/id/105798786) [pavanne](https://www.theguardian.com/food/2026/jul/08/aubergine-dolma-bake-spicy-herb-spinach-salad-recipes-sami-tamimi#comment-175111119) [4 hours ago](https://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/175111664)      3     No. My parents made dolmadakia and they always steamed the vine leaves my dad had grown. [Reply](https://profile.theguardian.com/signin?returnUrl=https://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/175111664&componentEventParams=componentType%3Didentityauthentication%26componentId%3Dsignin_to_reply_comment)         

    • [Girlthatcooks](https://profile.theguardian.com/user/id/110548718) [3 hours ago](https://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/175112376)   [Girlthatcooks](https://profile.theguardian.com/user/id/110548718) [pavanne](https://www.theguardian.com/food/2026/jul/08/aubergine-dolma-bake-spicy-herb-spinach-salad-recipes-sami-tamimi#comment-175111119) [3 hours ago](https://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/175112376)      3     I wouldn’t use fresh raw ones in any recipe - but freshly harvested leaves will work- only you need to blanch them first for 2-3 min in fast rolling water (salted if you like).

It gets rid of oxalic acid they are loaded with and which can cause health issues if consumed in excess. It’ll also soften the fibres to get the ready for any recipe as an alternative to the jars of brined ones you can buy.

(Must try preserving some of my own for the winter, given the amount we have, haha.) Reply
* onedash 2 hours ago onedash pavanne 2 hours ago 2 you can use any fresh but cabbage leaves (or other greens with big leaves), but than tomato sauce would need to be poured over stuffed rice leaves and they would cook in it, which would make for a winter dish and a different taste completely, no citrusy, only sour notes and very heavy, that is Iraqi dish too

I prefer a version of simple cold marinated vine leaves with cold spiced rice for summer, reading the recipe have doubts that adding spinach and aubergine would be adding, cause aubergine overpowers pretty much everything except garlic Reply

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