Preparing the stuffing

Wash the rice until water is translucent. Transfer the rice to a 2qt pot and add 3 cups of tap water, 4 tbsps oil and as much salt as you like. Cover with a lid and bring to boil. Reduce the heat to low and continue to cook for about 15 more minutes or until there is no more water. Turn off the stove and cover the pot with a towel for 15 more minutes. Don't get tempted to open the pot during cooking/post-cooking time. The rice needs the steam to get fully-cooked.  

To a hot pan with oil, add the chopped onion and fry with a lid for about 10 minutes on medium heat, with occasional stirring, to avoid burning the onion. Grate the beets and carrots on top of the rice, and add the oil, spices, parsley and fried onion. Mix well!

The stuffing is ready!

Preparing the chard leaves

Scalding the chard leaves is necessary to get them to soften-up and allow us to stuff them and fold them easily with the stuffing inside. The leaves don’t require more than 2-3 minutes in boiling water to get soft, so it’s not too time-consuming, and very essential. Don’t skip this step!

Carefully place a chard leaf in a deep large pot containing boiling-hot water. Keep the pot on the stove, so that the water is kept at the same temperature, more or less.

Make sure the leaf is as deep as it can go inside the pot, but don’t force it in, otherwise it’ll break… That’s why you want to use a deep-enough pot. 

Carefully remove the leaf, holding it from its stem, and put it on a strainer, and allow it to rest until you are ready to fill it.

When you are done scalding all the leaves, begin stuffing them.

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Stuffing the leaves

Place a leaf on a flat clean surface and spread it gently.

Put 2-3 tbsps of stuffing into the middle of the leaf, spread in between the root of the stem and the point where the stem ends on the top of the leaf. Then, begin to fold the leaves – starting from the sides – fold each side onto the middle, as if the sides are hugging the stuffing. Then take the upper part of the leaf and fold it on top of the already-folded sides, and continue to roll the entire ‘package’ until you “meet” the root of the stem more or less. It doesn’t have to be exactly at that point. Using a knife, cut the rest of the stem and discard it. The stuffed chard can now be placed in a wide rather-low pot with a thick bottom. Place the rest of the stuffed leaves in a nice order so that they’re all close and supportive of one another, so they don’t move around in the pot during cooking, but also not too tight so that there is enough room for the sauce to swim around and get absorbed in the rice. Otherwise the rice will end up dry or even worse – uncooked… So make sure you have enough liquids throughout the cooking time, but don’t over-drown it! Start by covering the stuffed chard leaves with the pre-made rather thick sauce, and after 30 minutes add another ½ cup of water.