Cabbage

A very good Monday to you all!

I am feeling a bit better this week, I may beat this cough yet.

This is a winter meal that my mother cooked for us.  There are many variations on the web for you to look at.  These can be assembled 1 to 4 hours ahead of time and kept covered in the fridge until you are ready to cook.  Cook time is around 1 hour +or-.  I serve this with Whipped/mashed potatoes and a oil and vinegar cabbage salad made from the left over wilted cabbage.  I use the sauce over the potatoes as well as the cabbage rolls.

When rolling the cabbage leaf around the ground beef I try to make sure that the meat is fully covered with the leaf and use the tooth picks to hold the leaf in place while I fry them.  I have cooked these 2 different ways either frying them first then baking or baking them first and then frying at the end.  It seems that frying them first works the best, I think that it seals the meat better to keep them moist.

At any rate go try these and let me know what you think.

‘Till next week see ya.

Steve

1.5 lbs ground beef

1 medium onion

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tbs Maggie or Worcestershire sauce

salt and black pepper to taste

1 head green cabbage

vegetable oil to fry in

Tooth picks.

Core cabbage and place whole in steamer basket (if you do not have steamer basket then place in about an inch of water and wilt the leaves.  Remove the leave in whole sections one at a time making sure to have them intact.  You will not use the entire head of cabbage for the meat so you can finish steaming the remaining cabbage and serve with the meal as is.

Using a sharp knife cut the center rib out of the leaf, again leaving the leaf whole as much as possible you are going to use the leaf to roll the meat inside.

Chop onion into small pieces set 1/2 aside for later. Combine ground beef and all ingredients in a bowl and mix well.

Place the wilted cabbage leaf on a cutting board. Pull the cut ends together and place about a 1/4 to 1/3 cup of meat on it. Fold the sides of the cabbage leaf over the meat and roll the meat up like you would a burrito. Use the tooth picks to secure the leaf around the meat. Repeat until you have used all the cabbage leaves you wilted or run out of meat.

Heat about 1 Tbsp veg oil in a wide pan and fry the cabbage rolls browning the cabbage leaf and searing the meat inside. Do not crowd your pan, fry in batches adding oil as needed.  Use water to deglaze the pan while frying to keep from burning the “drippings” you will want to use this to make a sauce to pour over the cabbage rolls.

Set the cabbage rolls into a oven safe dish and cook at 350 degrees for about 30 to 40 minutes.

After you have finished frying the cabbage rolls take the remaining onion and saute it in the grease left over from frying. you can add butter to the onions and fry till they are translucent. Keep adding small amounts of water to keep the grease and drippings from burning and then pour the resulting sauce into a bowl to use over the cabbage rolls.

There are variations to this recipe that you may want to look at.  One is to add ground pork to the mixture I would add ¼ of the amount of pork as beef (I do this sometimes as Mom use too also).  Another is to bake them in a tomato sauce (I have not tried this since it’s not Mom’s recipe). You can also add some cooked rice to the mixture before frying (I have not done this either but may sometime in the future).