Mixed Stuffed Cabbage and Vine Leaves

A mixed platter that pairs two Levantine mahashi, the cabbage roll beside the vine leaf roll, both wrapped around rice. Malfof, the cabbage roll, is the broad, pale, soft one: we fill it with rice worked through a cooked tomato sauce built on ground cumin and coriander, salt, white and red pepper and a trace of black, then brightened with parsley, dill and fresh coriander, so it eats savoury and warm, tomato and cumin first. Warak enab, the vine leaf roll, is the slim, dark, tightly wound one: its rice is cooked with onion and then dressed with chopped tomato, parsley, salt, a pour of olive oil and the pomegranate molasses, and more oil and molasses are poured over the rolls as they cook, so they come out glossy and sour-sweet, the molasses leading. The two sit side by side on the platter and are eaten in turns, the cabbage with a spoon and some of its sauce, the vine leaf by hand, so that neither taste covers the other. We make it for a table split between the savoury and the sour, and for anyone who wants to try both of our rolls in one order before settling on a favourite.