by Lisa E. Kirkwood
Throughout history, food diversity has been embraced by most people regardless of their personal, ethnic, and national background. Social customs or traditions may be similar, cooking styles are largely intertwined, and cultural exchanges happen at best when we gather to break bread, make new friends, and share tasty dishes from various countries
For example, in the Eastern European and Middle Eastern cuisine, the popular stuffed cabbage rolls are a highlight course of rich meals. Almost everyone likes these rolls, and the countless combinations of their main ingredients.
“It’s rolled to perfection, all the flavors of the ingredients just come out and the sauces makes it even better”
Different cultures can share the same or completely different recipes of meat-and-veggie wrapped rolls. In Islamic countries, where religion prohibits pork, this is replaced by other meats. Also, a healthier vegetarian/vegan alternative is regularly prepared for important Christian religious observances, preceded by fasting days with stricter diet when meat or dairy consumption is not encouraged or practiced.
The plant-based recipe includes rice (rinsed in water) or cereal grains as the main filling ingredient, along with sautéed and plain diced onion bits, corn, pumpkin, or sunflower seeds, other vegetables like carrots, potatoes, mushrooms, and even raisins for a more desert-like version, all mixed together with or without tomato sauce, in any combination that would add extra savor.
With practice, we can learn to trust our sense of taste as a guide for quality and healthy food choices. The quantities for each ingredient are not just randomly picked according to the chef’s personal preference; also consider how many people will be eating the food. One or two cored cabbages for family-size meals are enough. At weddings, hundreds of cabbage rolls are cooked in very big pots to feed a large number of guests.
Ingredients
- 2 lbs/ 1 kg combined ground pork/ beef
- ½ cup arborio rice
- 1 large onion chopped
- 1 tablespoon dried oregano
- 1 tablespoon dried basil
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 large sour cabbage
- 700 ml tomato juice
- 10 slices smoked bacon
- some fresh thyme sprigs
- 3-4 bay leaves
- salt and pepper
Recipe
- Get ready the meat stuffing.
- Boil arborio rice till it’s almost ready. Set aside to cool.
- Meanwhile chop the large onion. Sauté half of the quantity for a couple of minutes, saving the other half for later and set aside.
- In a large bowl mix all types of ground meat, add sauted onions and boiled rice, dried herbs, 1 teaspoon water, salt and pepper and mix well using your hands.
- Making the rolls.
- Remove gently not to break them, all cabbage leaves. You will only need the large leaves to make the rolls. The middle part will be chopped and added between cabbage rolls layers. Cut each large leaf in half, removing the tough core part too to make it easier to roll them.
- Add a tablespoon of ground meat mixture to each half leaf. Cover the filling with the edge from the base of the leaf. Bend edges on both sides and cover over the filling. Roll the stuffed cabbage leaf holding firm, so they won’t break during cooking time. Repeat these steps until you finish all of your group meat mixture.
- Roughly chop smaller leaves or some that broke during the rolling process and set aside.
- Place big saucepan over medium heat, add 2 tablespoons of olive oil and sauté the rest of chopped onions for 2-3 minutes. Add part of chopped sour cabbage leaves and sauté for another 2 minutes. Distribute the whole mixture on an even bottom layer and turn the heat to minimum. Start adding the rolls, creating a first level. Add some chopped smoked bacon, 2 bay leaves and 4 fresh thyme springs and some more chopped sour cabbage. Start creating the second level, putting rolls to the saucepan. When you finish the layer, add some more chopped sour cabbage on top, smoked bacon, another 2 bay leaves and some fresh thyme.
- Add half part sour cabbage juice and half part water to cover the rolls entirely. Place a lid on top of the saucepan and boil them on slow heat for at least 2 hours.
- After 2 hours, add tomato juice to the saucepan, place back the lid and boil for another 2 hours. The total cooking time should be at least 3 hours
- Serve them really warm with a dollop of sour cream onside and a jalapeño, if you like spicy
Nowadays, in this digital age, to try something new, you can Goggle just about any recipe, be it meat-based, vegetarian, or vegan, and YouTube tutorials can show you the preparation of a chosen dish step by step, which is recommended for first-time cooking.
Instead of cabbage, the stuffed rolls can also be wrapped in large vine leaves, broad dock leaves, or wide spinach leaves. Thus, the cooking time for the rolls can greatly vary. Vine leaves, dock leaves, and spinach leaves are too soft to be boiled in vinegary water; they can be kept for a few minutes in hot water mixed with a tablespoon of butter, taken out and dipped first in sour liquid and then in tomato sauce. Or the leaves for the stuffed rolls may not even be sour, just boiled in water and a bit of salt.
The preparation of cabbage rolls can easily take hours, this is not fast food! But it’s ok to use “shortcuts”. So, instead of boiling an entire cabbage in water to get the leaves, or pickling cabbage over weeks and months following old methods (tried and true, but time consuming), convenient online shopping can now deliver at your doorstep already pickled cabbage or rolled leaves.
Many ethnic grocery stores carry this product if you know what to look for
Even restaurants with international specific can sell sour cabbage leaves in glass jars or airtight packs.
If you do use sour cabbage, start the process by soaking the pickled leaves in warm water to take out some of the salt and sour taste.
Then, on each boiled or rinsed leaf, (whole or halved if large enough), after removing the hard edges, place a couple of tablespoons of mixture, cover it completely with the soft edge of the leaf, and tuck in the sides.
The filling should be shaped into rolls of equal size, and the leaves must be wrapped tight, so the content doesn’t spill.
Repeat until all the filling and/or all the cabbage leaves are used. If you have more filling than leaf, you can stuff peppers with the remaining mixture or just boil it inside the same pot. Place the cabbage rolls in tight rows because they tend to float, and the mixture may spill.
For spicing, in between rows place bay leaves or laurel leaves, whole black peppercorns, and slices of smoked bacon. Pour water and tomato sauce over each row, and cover everything with enough water to boil, gradually adding more hot liquid as needed, so the rolls cook evenly.
The cooking pot should be large enough, stove top and oven safe, or you can use a crockpot, in which case the cabbage roll can cook on high for about four hours and on low for another four.
If a regular pot is used, try the rolls every so often, so they don’t overboil. When fully cooked, turn off the pot, let it sit for 30 minutes before serving, and remove the spices – bay leaves, whole peppercorns, and slices of bacon.
Refrigerate the rolls after they cool down. Fully cooked or just ready for cooking, these can also be frozen for future meals. Enjoyed by all age groups, the cabbage rolls are offered at social and religious events, festive or special occasions like weddings, birthdays, holidays, family gatherings, and even official dinners.
Falling in love with exotic food, prepared according to local customs, in a variety of recipes and methods of cooking, equals embracing another culture in the emotional language expressed through sharing and caring, in an enjoyable feast of flavors for anyone who samples foods from various regions.
Food connects people worldwide for a multitude of reasons. Fans of gourmet international cuisine are everywhere, and trying foreign dishes can be a pleasant challenge.
Exploring traditional specialties outside of one’s native country brings greater cultural understanding. You can often find a new favorite eatery and enjoy it, while broadening your horizons.
In my native country, Romania, the famous cabbage rolls are known as sarmale (a favorite course for most people), in Türkiye and the Balkan countries as sarma, in Greece as dolmas, golumpki in Poland, and in Ukraine as holubtsi.
Whatever the name or geographical location, in its many different recipe versions, this dish is always delicious. Stuffed cabbage rolls are served hot and can be topped with sour cream or plain, unflavored yoghurt to enhance their taste and flavor
Bon Appétit!
by Lisa E. Kirkwood
The True Stories Merchant
