I'd never made stuffed cabbage before, but I've wanted to make it many a time. I'd actually never even eaten stuffed cabbage until I made this, but I enjoyed it. It seems quite labor intensive and it kind of is, but not too much to turn me off. To me, the most difficult thing was coordinating all the steps, but in the end, I found it to be quite delicious and flavorful. I replaced the rice with cauliflower and I honestly didn't miss it. Great heated up the next day for lunch.
Ingredients:
Meat Mixture
1 T. olive oil
1 lb ground beef (or whatever ground meat you like)
1/2 an onion, diced finely
1 clove garlic, minced
1-1/2 t. salt (or to taste)
1/2 t. ground black pepper
1-1/2 cups cauliflower, riced, minced, shredded, pulverized, or however you get yours small
2 eggs
1 c. tomato sauce (recipe below)
1 large head of cabbage
Tomato Sauce
1/2 onion, diced finely
1 clove garlic, minced
28 oz tomatoes, with juice
3 T. tomato paste
2 sun dried tomatoes
1/4 c. vinegar, balsamic (for slightly sweeter) or red wine (for more tang)
2 T. parsley
1-1/2 t. Italian seasoning
1/2 t. oregano
1 t. ground black pepper
1 t. onion powder
1 t. garlic powder
pinch of basil (I don't really like basil so I usually just use a bit at a time because it seems obligatory in a tomato sauce)
pinch of crushed red pepper
1 cup-ish chicken stock (or whatever kind of stock you have)
Go ahead and preheat your oven to 350.
For the cabbage, choose a larger one simply because it will have larger outer leaves which will make wrapping your little cabbage bundles easier. We need to get the leaves off the cabbage without tearing them too much and make them pliable enough for us to wrap around the meat mixture. To do this, we boil the cabbage just a bit. At this point, don't core the cabbage yet.
In a large, empty pot, place your head of cabbage. Cover the cabbage with cold water, just enough to come up to the core. This ensures that you have enough water to boil the cabbage, but not so much that retrieving the leaves is difficult. Remove the cabbage and put it in a bowl, since water will probably be draining out of it. Put a good dose of salt in the water and put it on to boil. While you're waiting for the water to boil, turn your cabbage so the core is facing you. Take a sharp knife and make four cuts around the core so you've basically made a square. You can cut in a circle if it makes you feel better, but the square is easier since it's just a stab, a couple of saws, and a turn of the cabbage. The point here is not to remove the core so you don't have to make your cuts on an angle. Straight down is fine. The point is to separate the outer leaves from the core so you don't have to try to cut them off while the cabbage is in the hot water and so you don't have to pull the cabbage out of the hot water, peel off a few leaves, put it back in the water for a bit, pull it back out, etc.
When the water is boiling, place your cabbage in, making sure the water covers the area around the core where we made our square. Let the cabbage sit a few minutes until the outer leaves start to look bright green - you'll notice the change - and the outer leaves at the top of the core have pulled away from the core a bit. Once that happens, take a pair of tongs and gently pull the outer leaves off the cabbage near the core. They should come off easily - maybe you'll need to do some manoeuvring of the cabbage with a spoon or something (roll it off the leaf you're trying to extricate) - otherwise, give it a few minutes more. Once you can get the leaves off, just place them in a bowl or plate to cool. Remove the rest of the leaves you'll need and then take the remaining cabbage out of the pot and set it aside to cool for use in some other recipe. When I made mine, I needed 9 cabbage leaves.
For the meat, in a large saute pan, heat the olive oil a bit over medium heat. Add both halves of the diced onion. Saute until they start to look translucent - about 5 minutes depending on the size of your dice. Add both garlic cloves and cook a minute or two more, until fragrant. Put half of the onions in your blender and leave the remainder in the pan. Add your beef, cauliflower, salt, and pepper. Cook until meat is brown and cauliflower is mostly translucent. At this stage, you're also waiting for the water in the cauliflower to release and cook off in the saute pan - otherwise, the mixture will be too soggy when we go to roll .
While the meat is cooking, toss your sun dried tomatoes and the juice from your 28 ounces of tomatoes into the blender with your onions. Pulse a bit until the mixture is smooth. Add your tomatoes, tomato paste, vinegar of choice, parsley, Italian seasoning, oregano, basil, black pepper, crushed red pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder to the blender and pulse away until it's the desired chunkiness. I wanted mine pretty smooth for this so I just whizzed for a minute or two. At this point, take a cup of the sauce and put it into the cooking meat mixture but leave the rest in the blender. To the sauce remaining in the blender, add about a cup of chicken stock and give it another whirr, just to incorporate the stock. We want the tomato mixture to be pretty liquid because water will cook out of the sauce while it's in the oven and you still want to have some sauce for your stuff cabbage once it's finished cooking. Taste it. It should taste good to you - if not, adjust the seasonings to your preference, but go easy on the salt since we have a nice bit in the meat already.
When the meat is done, turn the heat off and wait for it to cool. While it cools, cut a V into each of your cabbage leaves to remove the tough core part. That won't roll well. Once you cut the V, the leaves should pretty much lay flat.
Get out your dutch oven. Put enough sauce in the bottom of the dutch oven to cover it in a thin layer. Once the meat is cool, add the two eggs and give it a quick mix.
On to the rolling: Lay out a single cabbage leaf with the V area close to you - it should resemble a fan. Right above the notch of the V, place 1/3 cup of the meat mixture onto the cabbage leaf. Take each flap of the V and fold it over top of the meat. Fold the left and then the right (or vice verse) side of the cabbage leaf over the meat mixture. At this point, the meat should be almost fully tucked inside cabbage and kind of remind you of a burrito. Gently take the meat pocket and fold it over the remaining section of the cabbage at the top. Take your beefy, cabbage-y burrito and place it in the tomato sauce in the dutch oven with the seam side down so that all the folded areas of the cabbage roll are tucked on the bottom of the dutch oven. Repeat with the remaining cabbage leaves. Once everything's rolled and in the pot, pour the rest of the sauce over the top, which should be enough to cover all of our cabbage stogies. Put the lid on the dutch oven and put it in the oven for 1 hour and 15 to 30 minutes or until all our cabbage bundles are soft and tender (gently pierce with the tip of a knife to gauge tenderness if you need to) and the tomato sauce has thickened.
Serve. Eat. Enjoy!
