Comfort food from days gone by - Cabbage Rolls

By Kathleen Guagliano (Katg) on March 22, 2010

This is my favorite comfort food of all time! There are so many variations of cabbage rolls, but here's my Hungarian Granny's recipe and I love them!

Delicious Cabbage Rolls

This is my favorite “comfort food”. My Hungarian Grandmother lived in Saskatchewan and I’ll never forget taking a trip out to see her when I was about 19. My flight had gotten in quite late, but here she was in her 80’s at the time and what did she have on the stove? A big pot of delectable cabbage rolls! My Mom made them equally as good and this recipe has been passed down for generations. There are so many versions of cabbage rolls – Italian’s bake theirs and Hungarians will always say that the Polish or Ukrainians don’t put enough meat in them! (There's alway some cooking rivalry between countries!) These ones however, are cooked on top of the stove and sometimes, I’ll have a couple friends over and we sit around having a couple glasses of wine and make mounds of cabbage rolls (they freeze well before cooking) This recipe makes about 50.

(click images for full view)

Ingredients:

3 heads of cabbage -
1 large can of diced tomatoes 28oz
1 large bottle of tomato juice
½ green or red pepper
A couple sprigs of fresh dill
1 jar of sauerkraut

Filling:

1lb of ground Chuck
1 lb of ground Pork
1 lb of ground Veal
(or 2lbs beef/1lb pork)
1 1/2 large Onion diced fine
2 cloves garlic crushed
About a teaspoon of Rosemary
About a teaspoon of Oregano
About a teaspoon of Paprika
2 cups of nearly cooked long-grain rice
A handful of sauerkraut
Salt/Pepper

Start with some good Cabbage - I know it's hard to see what's inside but try to find medium sized heads with thick leaves.

Boil a big pot of water and take the cabbage and score it around the core so that the leaves fall off easy.

Put the cabbage into the water and let it simmer and then peel off the leaves as they get partially cooked.

Combine all the Filling ingredients and mix well (You have to use your clean hands)

TO ROLL

Trim off the hard core part running on the back of the cabbage leaves and lay the leaf flat. Add about 3 tablespoons of the filling to the center of the leaf (for larger leaves – use more, but don’t overstuff).

Fold the bottom up over the filling

Fold the left side over

And roll the rest...

Tuck in the top with your finger until it's tight and holds together. Prick the cabbage roll with a fork a couple of times to let the juices in and out.

Here they are...all rolled up and ready to go into the pot!

At this point they can be frozen. When ready to use, just put them into a pot frozen and proceed to the next step.(cook for an additonal 15 minutes

Line the bottom of a large pot with leftover cabbage leaves (prevents burning) Sprinkle a handful of diced tomatoes over these and start layering the cabbage rolls. Put a thin layer of Sauerkraut over the cabbage rolls and another sprinkling of tomatoes and repeat this process until the pot is full. Pour the tomato juice over everything until it’s covered. Sit the Green pepper and sprigs of Dill on top and bring to a low boil then turn down the heat and simmer on low for about 2 hours! You can cover it, but keep an eye on the pot to make sure it's not boiling too much. You don't want those cuties to break apart!

You will not believe the scent in your kitchen when these are cooking!. In fact…you’re going to want to test them before they’re done! hehe

Enjoy!

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