My wife wanted her mother’s cooking tonight so we made stuffed cabbage. It wasn’t a perfect replication but when a northern European mutt tries to make Eastern European food, we do our best. The tastes were much more Spanish and Portuguese then Hungarian. Here’s what we did:
- 1 head cabbage (but more especially in the spring)
- 1 lb ground beef
- 1 lb ground pork
- 1 onion, diced
- cumin
- coriander
- fenugreek powder
- garlic powder
- sweet paprika
- smoked paprika
- salt and pepper
- 2 eggs
- 2 C. cooked rice (2/3 of 1 C. rice cooked in 2 C. water with olive oil and salt)
- Roasted red pepper
- 1 big can tomato puree
Boil the head of cabbage and pull off the leaves as they get soft. While that is going on, mix up to the rice together in a big bowl. Roll up the mixture the cabbage leaves making sure to cut out the big veins. Channel your inner Hungarian grandma, mine still needs some work. Put them in a tomato puree lined baking pan. Poor the rest of the tomato puree over the top and throw the red peppers over the top. With the cabbage that doesn’t make the cut because it is too small, cut small and throw into pan. We had way too much meat to cabbage and made meatballs with the leftovers. Bake at 350 degree for an hour, covered. Remove cover and lower temp to 200 for another hour. This last step could have been mitigated to get rid of some of the liquid because we left it covered a bit too long. These were super tender but my wife wondered why there was no sauerkraut, that’s the Northern European in me coming out.
Working Dad Cooks 