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My mom used to make cabbage rolls or stuffed bell peppers about once a week when I lived with her while going to college. With Julie out of town this week to take care of our grandsons in California, I thought it would be a good time to try making one of those dishes, because Julie dislikes the smell of cabbage and peppers.
I like the consistently sweeter taste of cooked cabbage a little better, so I went with that option, but the same meat can be used to stuff bell peppers (any color).
In fairness to Julie, the cabbage boiling proved to be quite aromatic. To me, cooked cabbage smells sweet, but I guess that depends on personal olfactory sensitivities.
Gina and Laszlo came over for dinner. We all liked them.
I will say that on this first attempt, I used canned Signature Brand Crushed Tomatoes with Garlic, which for me were too garlicky. As Gina and Laszlo said, that suited this particular audience.
I have only faint memories of Mom preparing the meat filling but remember how it tasted and looked. I watched Rachel Ray on Youtube preparing something similar, but in a more complicated way. I also looked up some recipes online to see if any others had insights.
These recipes all turned out to be for double batches, so Gina and Laszlo will help me finish the leftovers for dinner today. For what it is worth, I served it with a loaf of French Bread, with only a few pieces sliced off, because we love the bread but avoid the carbs. There's plenty of bread left for the second meal.
While the preparation was time consuming, this is much simpler than the recipes I found online. You probably have more seasonings than I do, so you can add that fennel seed, sage and whatever else they recommend or you intuit.
Key points I took from scanning recipes were cook it for an hour and a half or two hours, plus the amounts of major ingredients like meat and rice, which were also not exactly set in stone.
I used two pounds of 93% lean ground turkey. Perhaps a pound of sausage and a pound of beef in place of one or both pounds of turkey would be tastier. Vegans can easily substitute Beyond Beef or some other factory made faux beef, and whatever egg substitute they might like.
I would think tofu could be substituted for meat, but it would probably have to be put through a food processor or perhaps not have the rice and spices blended in.
INGREDIENTS:
1 whole Cabbage (get a large one)
2 pounds of ground meat or meat substitute
1 egg
1 cup of uncooked long grain rice
Salt and Pepper
Crushed Red Pepper
Onion Flakes (a whole onion can be substituted)
2 crushed Garlic Cloves (if you desire rather than powdered garlic, tomatoes with garlic, or no garlic)
Most people would use garlic, but I don't have garlic and didn't want to buy a big container for this one dish when my wife doesn't like the smell of garlic, which explains why I bought Crushed Tomatoes with Garlic, which cost the same as without Garlic.
Two 14 1/2 cans of Crushed or Diced Tomatoes (As I think back, I think my mom simply used tomato juice, though I remember something thicker on top, like maybe tomato paste? I would think you could easily substitute marinara sauce). For the first batch, I used Signature Brand Crushed Tomatoes with Garlic, which to me was too garlicky. Maybe one can without garlic and one with garlic?
I tasted the Signature Crushed Tomatoes with Garlic and found it not quite a sweet as I imagined it might be, so I put just a couple of dashes of Nutmeg and Cinnamon on top, basically using the chef's prerogative of seasoning to taste, although I actually didn't know how that would taste until it cooked. I think it made it slightly sweeter.
Plus Quick-Clean Cuisine standards Aluminum Foil and Parchment Paper to make cleaning your baking dishes easier.
Step 1: Rinse the outside of the cabbage and boil the whole head.
Some recipes say to cut out the core before cooking, which might be better, but it is also a chance to cut yourself and be rushed to the emergency room pushing a sharp blade into oa hard cabbage core in an awkward position rather than just wasting a little energy to cook the cabbage until it is easy to peel the cabbage leaves off.
A mistake I made was cutting the cabbage into quarters so that it would fit in the big pot I used to boil it with less water. I would say maybe cut it in half if necessary to fit, but a whole cabbage obviously provides bigger leaves as the wraps.
Bring the water to a boil and then keep it in a light boil for 20 minutes. I would advise not using a lid, although using one does conserve energy, unless it boils over and gets all over the stove, which then takes more of your energy to clean up.
Step 2: Line your 8" X 12" Baking Dish or some combination of smaller baking dishes with Heavy Aluminum Foil or two layer of lighter foil. I only used one layer of light foil and what turned out to be a rather saucy dish bled through, requiring me to uncharacteristically soak and scrub the baking dish later, despite also using parchment paper on the bottom. NO BUENO!
Add a layer of parchment paper above the foil. To reiterate, thin foil plus parchment paper did not prove to be a sufficient barrier.
Step 3: If you are using fresh onion, mince it on a large cutting board with a ridge around the edge that you might have used to cut the cabbage in half or in any case will use later.
If you want fresh garlic, do that thing where you turn a knife sideways and pound it to crush it. That's the fat side of the knife, not the blade line. Maybe 2 cloves, unless you really love garlic, then no more than 6 cloves, I would guess, based on recipes I saw. As I said, I skipped this step.
Step 4: While the cabbage boils, you could make the meat filling in a big mixing bowl separately, which is how Mom did it. I remember he using that pink and white Pyrex Bowl she used for many cooking projects.
But, of course, I am the Master of Quick-Clean Cuisine. I began this project with a few hours to spare. so I waited for the cabbage to boil. I put the cabbage on a large cutting board with a ridge to stop water from flooding the countertop.
I mixed the meat filling in that pot I mean, what was it going to do, make the filling taste like cabbage that it would soon be wrapped in? I advise you to do the same, unless you are in a time crunch to get the meal cooked and don't mind washing big bowls. If you wash your own dishes, you understand why.
Put a pound of meat in the pan. Make a golf ball-sized indent in the middle. Crack the egg and put egg white and yoke in that hole. Sprinkle on Dried Onion Flakes or minced onions. Add Salt and Pepper in reasonable quantities. You can always add Salt and Pepper later, but you can't take them out.
Add Crushed Red Pepper in an amount you think you and your guests will like. More, less or not at all will work, depending on those dining.
If I had All Spice, I probably would have added a pinch or two of that, and there are other herbs you might like and think would work. However, I find the simplest spices make things taste just as good and usually better than more complicated ingredient lists, unless you are professional chef who has thousands of hours of experience experimenting with them. In any case, everything in moderation, at most.
Add a cup of Uncooked Long Grain Rice (NOT Minute Rice or Brown Rice, which cook too fast and too slow, respectively) .
Put the other pound of meat on top of that concoction. Take off your rings and squish it all together with your fingers.
Of course, it goes without saying that you washed your hands before beginning to cook, and that you don't handle anything else with those meat-smashing hands. I guess you could wear those disposable thin plastic gloves, if you have them, which would probably be better hygienically but not environmentally.
Step 5: Flatten the meat and rice concoction in the bottom of the pan or mixing bowls and score it with your hand like a pizza, cutting first in half, then quarters, eighths and sixteenths, successively. Squish them together into little sausage logs.
Step 6: Pour one 14 1/2 can of Diced or Crushed Tomatoes into the baking dish or divided proportionally between smaller baking dishes. Because this is just a can you are discarding, don't worry about washing your hands to handle it, as long as you dispose of it properly. I put it inside a grocery bag with other packaging waste.
Step 7: Wrap the logs into Cabbage leaves and set them in the baking dish atop the Crushed or Diced Tomatoes. Proceed to do this for all of the meat. If you cut the cabbage into smaller chunks to cook them, like I did, then you will need to use two or three partial leaves to wrap them.
At some point, you might find yourself without any leaves large enough to roll. Do not panic and rush to the store to buy more cabbage. I just put smaller piece of cabbage into the baking dish, put the remaining logs on top and then covered them with more small pieces of cabbage.
It became more of a cabbage roll casserole for about half of the dish, but by the time they finished cooking, it was hard to tell which was which. It might even be better as a casserole, which had more cabbage, albeit smaller pieces.
Step 8: Pour the other 14 1/2 ounce can of Crushed or Diced Tomatoes on top.
Step 9: Bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for two hours. Some recipes said 1/2 hours, and some said 2. I split the difference by not pre-heating the oven. I also used a Convection Oven, which reduced the heat to 375 degrees.
Step 10: Remove the dish from the oven using pot holders or oven mitts and place it on a hot plate to be served with a large spoon. I think French Bread makes a nice side dish.
