Stuffed Cabbage

It’s simple, it’s delicious, but there are so many variations on the idea of a stuffed cabbage. So simple, you take a cabbage leaf, and put good stuff in it, then roll it up, sauce it, and bake. Right? So many ways…

This post is different in that I didn’t do research on recipe variations. OK, I looked at about a dozen. And there are so many variations, so many ethnic variations, I just decided to ignore the “traditional ethnic it-must-be-done-this-way” variations. I made it like I cook every night, meaning, no recipe. That can be scary to some, but I just do it by feel.

The biggest decision was whether to use cooked vs. uncooked rice. Recipes out there differ on this. My reasoning was thus: If I use cooked rice it will absorb a minimum of the juice produced during cooking and perhaps get gummy or mushy; if I use uncooked rice, it will absorb a maximum of juice and retain its integrity. I went with uncooked rice. Knowing this, I used an extended cooking time to allow the rice to absorb the juice and cook. Crunchy uncooked rice is not good eats. And, if you have leftover cooked rice on hand to use? I won’t say anything bad about using that - my suggestion is that cup for cup (cooked vs. raw), use 1.5 to 2 times more cooked rice than raw. Because rice expands as it cooks, and a recipe that starts with uncooked rice, say a cup by volume, equals a recipe with cooked rice at, say, 1.5 to 2 cups. Or so.

So, now that that’s all out of the way, what do I know of stuffed cabbage? Uh, um, not a meal I had as a kid. My mother was not a good cook. Adequate, mostly. She didn’t like having to be in the kitchen, a role women of her generation were expected to play. Like her mother before, she wanted a life of ease, say, at the country club, and, perhaps, servants. Servants would be nice. As mother of four kids (three boys then a girl), she did what she had to do, and really, did pretty well in spite of her lack of a food history, to make dinner for the family every night, but she did not know how to cook. She was a fan of processed and packaged “foods.” But her mother was even worse. Even more social-climby, even more hateful that life did not give her staff…  I’ll stop for now. But in some future post I’ll explain what drove me to cook. And it’s related to my mother’s “cooking.”

So where did I first encounter stuffed cabbage?

I’m thinking it was not at table, but rather in a cookbook or a magazine. Certainly not a restaurant because I, as a college then grad student, had very limited “entertainment” money and didn’t eat out. And I can’t think of one place in Storrs, CT, or Bloomington, IN, back then that would have had stuffed cabbage on the menu. Way too simple and ethnic.

What a loss. It’s a great dish, a canvas that can be painted in many ways.

So I guess it was a cookbook or magazine. Regardless, the idea of seasoned and spiced ground meat rolled in a leaf and topped with sauce took root in my head and I’ve been making them without a recipe for years. What pushed me to make them now? The incredible Savoy cabbages at the Farmer’s Market this season. Tonight’s challenge was to write down what I did to create dinner:

Stuffed Cabbage

Makes 6 generous servings (two rolls each)

There are four parts to this process: Make the filling, make the sauce, assemble the rolls, and bake the combined result. I wanted to keep the sauce as simple as possible to let the stuffed cabbage sing.

Materials and Methods

Filling
Savoy Cabbage	12	leaves
Onion	1	small-medium, chopped fine
Ground beef	1	lb
Ground pork	1	lb
Rice, uncooked	1	cup
Red wine	1 to 2	Tbs, optional
Egg	2	large
Garlic	3	cloves, crushed
Salt, Kosher	1	Tbs1
Black Pepper	2	tsp
Parsley	3	Tbs, chopped fine
Fenugreek	2	tsp2
Thyme, Dried	2	tsp
Coriander, ground	2	tsp
Sauce 3
Tomato sauce	2	28 oz can diced or puree
White vinegar	2	Tbs
Sugar, white	1	Tbs
Garlic	3	cloves, crushed
Salt, Kosher		to taste
Black Pepper		to taste

Make the Filling:

Mix all the filling ingredients, except the cabbage, together until completely combined. It’s that simple. Just mix, and mix, and mix. Don’t worry about over-mixing, some idea you sometimes see in meatball or meatloaf recipes. Mixing is good.

For the cabbage, the traditional method is to peel off leaves and then boil them a bit to soften, and then run them under cold water. This works fine. Alternatively, you can peel off the leaves, put them in the freezer for an hour, then defrost them (even under running cold water). Either way, the effect is the leaves are softened enough to roll up stuffed cabbages.

The only additional step is to thin the thick central vein of the leaves. What I do is to place the leaf on the cutting board back side up, and with a paring knife, slice off as much of the thick central vein as possible without damaging the integrity of the whole leaf. I also cut off a bit of the odd end of the bottom of the leaf. It makes for a better roll.

Make the sauce:

It doesn’t get simpler. Put all the sauce ingredients into a large heavy pot, and bring to a simmer. Keep it going for a while until it thickens somewhat, perhaps 30 minutes after it comes to the simmer. This sauce has a distinct sweet/sour loveliness.

Assembly:

It couldn’t be simpler, it couldn’t be harder. It’s all about putting enough filling in the leaf, but not too much, not too little. And each leaf is different, so, add and subtract as needed.

In a rectangular casserole dish, spoon about ¹⁄₄ of the sauce into the dish and spread evenly.

Place a leaf “cup side up” on the cutting board (central rib already trimmed, see above). Roll up a ball of filling, then roll between your hands to make a cylinder that is wide enough to fill ²⁄₃ the width of the leaf. Look at it. Imagine rolling up the leaf. Is there more leaf than filling? Meaning, if you rolled it up, would the leaf meet itself on the roll-up and then some for a, say, ¹⁄₂ or more turn? That means you don’t have enough filling. If you imagine rolling it up and the leaf never meets? Too much filling. Each leaf will be different. Try to get about a ¹⁄₄ turn overlap when rolling.

As you roll the leaves up, place them seam-side down in the casserole on top of the sauce. A 9x12 dish will hold about 12 rolls.

Spoon the rest of the sauce over the top and sides of the rolls, covering all.

Bake:

Place in a 350°F oven for about an hour. The important thing to note for doneness is “Is it bubbling in the center?” If so, and it’s been at least 15 minutes, it’s done. If not, give it some more time. You don’t want crunchy rice, remember?

When done, let it rest for at least 20-30 minutes on the counter before serving. This is a meal in itself - no sides needed.

Notes:

¹ Measuring kosher salt. My tea and tablespoons are calibrated. A teaspoon is 5 mls, and a tablespoon is 15 mls. That’s milliliters. Also, I use Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt. If you use Morton’s or use some kind of “table” salt, you must use a smaller volume. I’d prefer to present salt by weight, and then it wouldn’t matter. If you use Morton’s kosher, reduce the volume of salt by 0.75. (Multiply 1 Tbs by 0.75, and you get, exactly, 0.75 Tbs. (that's ³⁄₄ Tbs)) If you use granulated table salt, multiply by 0.6.

² Fenugreek. This member of the Bean family (Trigonella foenum-graecum) is widely used as a flavoring from India to Turkey, and down into Egypt, Ethiopia and Somalia. It is not widely known in the typical US kitchen. For a substitution, I suggest Cumin, or a mild curry powder.

Also, If you're not a fan of "curry" type flavors, skip it altogether. The Coriander will sing.

³ The amount of sauce. When I looked at recipes, they fell in to two categories. Those with one can, those with two cans. I want two. If you choose to go one, you won't have enough sauce to cover everything, so make a change - cover with foil. It will take longer to bake, but it will work.