Amazing Stuffed Cabbage Recipes

Steps:

• Using a paring knife, remove center core of cabbage. In a large nonreactive stockpot, bring 2 quarts water to a boil. Add cabbage and cook 2 to 3 minutes or until outer leaves are bright green and tender. Lift cabbage from water, and remove outer leaves. Return cabbage to boiling water, and repeat brief cooking and removal of leaves until all leaves are cooked. Reserve 2 cups cabbage cooking water. Trim thick center vein from bottom of each leaf. Reserve four large outer leaves to line bottom of pan.
• In a medium skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Add onion and garlic, and cook until golden and tender, about 8 minutes. In a large bowl, combine onion mixture, rice, beef, pork, salt, pepper, parsley flakes, green pepper, and celery. Stir to combine.
• Add about 1/3 cup rice filling to one cabbage leaf. Fold sides of cabbage over filling, and, starting with the stem end, roll the cabbage up. Repeat with remaining leaves and filling.
• Line a 5-quart Dutch oven with reserved outside leaves. Transfer stuffed cabbage leaves to Dutch oven.
• In a large bowl, combine tomato puree and the reserved 2 cups of cabbage cooking water. Pour some of the tomato sauce over cabbage to almost cover. Sprinkle apple over top of cabbage leaves. Bring to a boil and immediately reduce to a gentle simmer; cover. Cook for 1 hour or until cabbage is very tender, adding additional tomato sauce as needed.
• Place sour cream in a small bowl, and ladle in about 3/4 cup of tomato sauce from the cooked stuffed cabbage rolls. Whisk to combine. Add sour cream mixture back to Dutch oven, and stir to combine. Serve with additional sour cream.

Steps:

• Cook cabbage in boiling water only until leaves fall off head. Reserve 14-16 large leaves for rolls and set aside remaining cabbage. , In a bowl, combine rice, beef, onion, Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper and 1/4 cup soup. Put 2 to 3 tablespoons meat mixture on each cabbage leaf. Fold in sides, then roll up leaves to completely enclose meat., Line a Dutch oven with leftover cabbage leaves. Combine remaining soup and water; pour over cabbage. Stack cabbage rolls on top of sauce. Cover. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer on low for 1 to 1-1/2 hours or until rolls are tender. , Remove rolls and cabbage. If desired, sauce may be thickened by boiling over high heat. Spoon sauce over rolls and cabbage and serve immediately.

Steps:

• In a medium saucepan, bring water to a boil. Add rice and stir. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 20 minutes.
• Bring a large, wide saucepan of lightly salted water to a boil. Add cabbage leaves and cook for 2 to 4 minutes or until softened; drain.
• In a medium mixing bowl, combine the ground beef, 1 cup cooked rice, onion, egg, salt and pepper, along with 2 tablespoons of tomato soup. Mix thoroughly.
• Divide the beef mixture evenly among the cabbage leaves. Roll and secure them with toothpicks or string.
• In a large skillet over medium heat, place the cabbage rolls and pour the remaining tomato soup over the top. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 40 minutes, stirring and basting with the liquid often.

Steps:

• Place cabbage head in freezer and freeze overnight. Remove from freezer, thaw and peel away leaves.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
• Combine the beef, egg, onion, rice, salt and pepper. Mix together well. Take a small handful and form into a small roll or ball. Place into the center of a cabbage leaf. Fold the sides of the leaf over and roll the ball up into the leaf. Place seam side down in baking dish. Continue until all of the filling is used up.
• Mix together the soup with a 1/2 can water; pour over stuffed cabbage.
• Bake uncovered at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 1 hour; baste often with the sauce.

Steps:

• Bring a large pot of water to boil. Salt it generously.
• Core the cabbage. Gently peel away the leaves to expose the heart (by heart, I mean the ball of more yellowish leaves at the center which are too tightly packed to bother prying apart). Cut out that core of inner-most leaves and shred to add to the stuffing. Cut the thick ribs out of the remaining leaves (they will look like you've stolen a sliver from a pie). Set aside.
• Blanch the cabbage leaves for 5 to 7 minutes. Drain, and refresh under ice-cold water. Drain and pat dry with a towel.
• Break the bread into crumbs in a bowl, pour over the milk and set aside to soften. Heat the butter and olive oil in a skillet and gently fry the onion and shallot until transparent, about 5 minutes. Add the chopped cabbage, mushrooms, garlic and thyme. Cook another 5 minutes. Add the bread and cook until the milk has evaporated. Stir through the quatre-epices and season generously with salt and pepper. Add this mixture to the sausage meat in a large bowl and mix thoroughly with a fork. Make a small ball and fry it in the frying pan. Taste it to check the seasonings. Adjust as needed.
• Lay a tea towel on the counter with a piece of cheesecloth or muslin large enough to wrap the cabbage in. You're going to reconstruct the cabbage, but with layers of stuffing between the leaves. So, first lay down the large outer leaves, in a circle, slightly overlapping with the prettiest side out. Spread over a layer of stuffing. Lay over another layer of leaves and repeat the action. Continue until you have run out of leaves. Pull up the edges of the cheesecloth, like a bag, and twist, as if making the head of a puppet, to shape the cabbage into a round loaf shape. Tie a string around the beard of cheesecloth where it meets the cabbage ball, to secure the package. The cabbage can be prepared to this stage in advance, refrigerated and then cooked before serving.
• To cook: Steam the cabbage over water or good chicken stock (about 2 cups/500 ml of it) for 45 minutes. The flavor from the stuffed cabbage will drip into the water or stock and give it the most amazing flavor. When the cabbage is done, boil down the cooking juices and serve a spoonful around each wedge of cabbage in a soup bowl.

Steps:

• There are many ways that you can skin a cat, so let's tackle this cabbage.
• You can either pain stakingly score the head of cabbage around the root and try and free up some leaves (careful not to tear them), and then put them in a pot of boiling water for about 5 minutes to soften them up, carefully removing from pot and placing on a paper towel to cool --
• Or you can remove the root if any from the head, score the leaves around the root and drop the whole head into the boiling water for about 5-10 minutes and the leaves will come off more easily. If you use this method, remove the whole head of cabbage after you get your leaves off and place aside to cool, cuz you're gonna need it in a bit --
• You will need about 10 cabbage leaves to make 10 rolls --
• After the head of cabbage cools, shred it and discard any large pieces --
• In a large frying pan over med high heat, saute the onion and garlic for 5 minutes, add the tomato (with juice) the shredded cabbage, salt and pepper and the red pepper flakes. Cook and stir until the liquid almost all gone and the vegetables are soft -- about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and let it cool.
• In another large bowl, combine the ground beef, rice, cooled tomato mixture and bread crumbs. Mix well, but don't over mix the meat. The more you handle ground beef the tougher it will become -- It should be able to form into a little "meatloafs" if not, then add a little more bread crumbs.
• Preheat oven to 375. Spray a 9 x 13 pan with cooking spray. Working one at a time, take a small handful of the meat mixture and place towards the bottom (where the root is) of a cabbage leaf, now your gonna want to channel your Latino and roll those polish babies like a burrito. Tuck the bottom over a little and then bring in both sides, and then roll! Place seam side down in the baking dish. Repeat until your dish is full. They can be touching, and you're gonna want them to.
• Wisk the soup, water and honey together and pour evenly over cabbage rolls. Cover the baking dish tightly with foil and bake for 1 hour. Remove the foil and then top with a little of your mozzarella cheese and bake for another 20 minutes.
• Notes.
• Here are some tidbits and thoughts.
• 1.Some people don't like the vein of the cabbage so after you have cooked the leaves you can run your knife down the sides of the vein and discard. Or if you are like me and are an equal opportunity cabbage lover, you will keep it. It will get soft during cooking --
• 2.Some of you Polacks (and I say that lovingly, because I am part Litvak (Lithuanian)) out there are scoffing at the fact that it has cooked cabbage in the center and cheese on top -- But hey, it works. The cheese gets nice and golden brown and lovely and the cabbage in the meat mixture is just sublime.
• 3.I have made the meat mixture by making instant rice. 1 cup of uncooked instant rice is far more than 1 cup after you cook it. If you do this, it just makes more of the mixture and after 10 rolls I had enough mixture to set aside and freeze for another glorious Polish day in my household.

Steps:

• 1. Fill a large pot with water and bring it to a rolling boil. When the water comes to a boil, fill a large bowl with ice water. Cut out as much of the core as you can from the bottom of the cabbage, then drop the whole, cored head into the boiling water for 3 to 4 minutes. Once the leaves separate and are pliable, immediately remove and drop the blanched leaves that separated (keep the pot of water boiling) in the ice water. Once cooled down, remove and pat the leaves dry. Repeat with any leaves still attached to the head and not pliable, until you've gotten all the leaves off the head, and they are all soft and pliable.Alternatively, If you've got time on your hands, you can freeze the wrapped head of cabbage for two days then defrost. Cut out as much of the core as you can, then wrap tightly and freeze. When defrosted, the leaves will peel off easily and be soft enough to roll.Here's some other ideas from readers, although I have yet to try them so I cannot confirm that they work. 1. Place the cabbage in the microwave for 6 minutes. The core will slip right out and the leaves will be perfect for rolling. 2. Cut out the core, fill the hole with water, then tie it up tightly in a microwave safe plastic bag. Microwave it for 6 minutes, then remove it from the microwave and let it steam in the bag for about a half hour. 2. Set aside about 16 of the largest leaves (these will be your cabbage rolls. If you can only get 14 leaves, it's fine) and slice off any thick parts of the vein on each of them, or just cut out the thick vein since that part will be covered once the cabbage leaf is rolled. Chop some of the remaining cabbage leaves to make 1 cup of chopped cabbage, and reserve. 3. Make the sauce (recipe below). Set aside to let cool. IMPORTANT: Taste the sauce as you add the brown sugar, anywhere from 2 tablespoons to 3⁄4 cup as stated in the ingredient list above, starting with only 2 tablespoons so you sweeten it to YOUR preference. Some like it very sweet and sour, and some do not. 4. In a large bowl, mix the ground beef with the eggs, grated onion, chopped garlic, salt, pepper, and rice. (If you use cooked rice, you can test the seasoning of the meat mixture to your liking by frying up or microwaving a piece of it and tasting, if desired). Divide the meat mixture into sixteen equal pieces, or 14 equal pieces, about 2 to 3 oz each, depending on whether you have 16 or 14 cabbage leaves. Using slightly moistened hands (or not, since it rarely sticks to my hands), form the pieces into thick cylinders. Place a cylinder of filling near the bottom of a cabbage leaf (if the vein in the leaf is really thick, shave it down with a knife before placing the beef on it, being careful not to cut a big hole through the leaf itself OR, cut the thick vein out completely in a narrow V. When you roll the cabbage, that V will be covered sufficiently, as mentioned above). 5. Roll the meat filled cabbage leaf up, folding both sides over the filling, (like you see in the above photos) and finish rolling to enclose the filling, like a burrito. Continue, filling and rolling all the cabbage leaves. Line the bottom of a 13 x 9 roasting pan or glass dish with a layer of sauce. Place cabbage rolls, seam side down, on top of sauce. 6. Top cabbage rolls with remaining sauce then cover the whole pan with tin foil. Bake for 2 hours in a preheated 350 F oven. Sauce Directions 1. Over medium heat, melt the butter and/or oil in a heavy, non-reactive saucepan. Sauté the second onion until soft and golden. Add the garlic and saute for 2 more minutes, then add the reserved 1 cup chopped cabbage and sauté for about 30 seconds to 1 minute more. 2. Add the tomato sauce, lemon juice, brown sugar, salt and pepper to taste, and stir to combine. Increase the heat until it comes to a boil, then lower it and simmer for 5 minutes. Add raisins now, if using. Set aside to cool while making the cabbage rolls. notes: * You can cook the rice before adding it to the meat mixture, if desired (just follow the rice manufacturer's directions for cooking 1⁄2 cup of rice, which should give you about 11⁄2 cups cooked rice), but my grandmother used uncooked rice, and I've never ended up with even one uncooked grain when my cabbage rolls are done. The rice always cooks to perfection. Either way, it's up to you! ** Sauce can be made 2 days ahead; just cover and chill. Also, if you like a lot of sauce, just double or add another half of the original recipe.