Sunday, Feb. 5, 2012

Hungarian/Bulgarian/Russian/Polish-inspired cabbage rolls

These were super time consuming to make but incredibly delicious. I ate them three days in a row and then froze the rest. Now I have a wonderful wintry meal to eat anytime I don't feel like cooking but still want real food.


Enjoy!



Tak,

First things first: 

Boil water

Core a head of Savoy cabbage. (This is much harder than one would initially think.)

Put the cabbage in a large bowl and cover it in the hot water. Pull off leaves as they become pliable enough to roll. You may have to do this a few times. (You could probably just boil the whole head of cabbage if you have a big enough bowl, but be careful to pull off the leaves now and then.)

Oh and preheat your oven to something like 180°C/350°F.

For the filling:

Ground pork or beef (or half and half)

1 carrot, shredded

1 parsnip (I had no idea what this was until I decided to make this dish.), shredded

tons of garlic (I used 3 cloves), minced

1 onion, diced

rice (I used 2.5 handfuls... I have small hands so I'm guessing that's around 1/2-3/4 of a cup)

Sautee onions and garlic. Add uncooked rice to brown it a bit. Add parsnip and carrot. Let cool then add it to the (uncooked) ground meat in a bowl and mix well. Set aside.

For the sauce:

1 onion, diced

1-2cloves garlic, diced

1-2 cans diced tomatoes (I did one can and then added a diced tomato of my own)

1 500g box of tomato puree (you do the math, or better yet, ask Mr. Google.)

brown sugar

salt and pepper (remember tomato products have a lot of salt already)

Sautee onions and garlic. Add everything else. Once it's all heated through, puree using an immersion blender.  This is a very basic sauce. With everything else is the dish, I was happy to have something simple with not too many flavors. You can toy with it and adapt to your taste buds.

Put sauce on the bottom of a large pan. 

For assembly:

To make rolls, put 1-2 large spoonfuls of the filling mixture on a cabbage leaf and roll like a burrito making sure to tuck in the sides. Place roll into pan with the seam side down so it won't unravel. Be careful not to roll too tightly or fill too much or it will unroll and/or burst. Nobody wants that.

Cover rolls in more sauce.

Put in the oven.

After about an hour, add the rest of the sauce and cook another 1/2 hour to an hour until tender. The cabbage was still a little crisp when I took mine out, but the meat and rice were all cooked.