Balandėliai: Lithuanian stuffed cabbage rolls

Did you know that our Lithuanian cabbage rolls are not actually cabbage rolls at all our. Having started in the Far East before our era, it took well over a millennium to (only!) reach Lithuanian cuisine at the beginning of the twentieth century. Eastern Europeans (like us) associate the name of the dish with a bird, and call it holubki, golabki, cabbage rolls. Others have a play that simply says it’s a dish wrapped in cabbage leaves – cabbage roll, kapusti titeni. Apparently, cabbage rolls are very tasty for everyone, after all, so many countries can’t be wrong by adapting to their national cuisines.

My love for cabbage rolls has changed with age. When I was a child, I asked for as few cabbage leaves as possible on my plate, and if they would have allowed me, I would have gladly eaten only the meat and rice filling. I’m just reminding you, once upon a time there were times when children were required not only to eat everything in a row, but also to completely eat what was put on the plate! Right now, the tastiest part of cabbage rolls for me is the cabbage leaves.

Very tasty cabbage rolls, how to make them

We will need a large pot that will hold all of the cabbage, or at least cover most of it. All other common kitchen tools: knife, fork or tongs, cutting board, frying pan, pot for stewing.

Ingredients:

large cabbage, the tastiest cabbage rolls from fresh cabbage

500 g of lean minced pork

150 g long-grain rice, well washed

a few spoons of oil for frying

1 large onion, a couple of cloves of garlic

400 ml can of canned chopped tomatoes

salt, pepper, Provence herbs, a couple of spoons of flour, a couple of spoons of sour cream, parsley

Get ready to play a little in the kitchen, there are several steps involved in making cabbage rolls, so it’s always a good idea to make a little extra and freeze it in the fridge for the next meal.

First, you need to prepare the cabbage leaves so that they soften and do not break when wrapping and cooking the rice.

Cook the rice according to the instructions on the package, or as you are used to. I cook rice in a rice cooker – I add well-washed rice, add water according to the marked proportions, turn it on and forget it. The stove will beep when done. After cooking, leave the rice to cool.

How to prepare cabbage leaves

Not the safest way, but this is how my grandmother, mother and I prepared leaves for the cabbage rolls.

Boil water, then put the cabbage in a large pot and pour boiling water over it so that it is almost covered. Heat the pot on low heat. With one hand, hold the cabbage with a large kitchen fork, ideally if you can comfortably insert it into the cabbage stem, and with the other hand, use a knife to cut the cabbage leaves one at a time from the base as soon as the leaf turns and softens. In this way, cut off almost all the fallen leaves and leave them to cool down a little, so that they are not too hot to pick up with your hands.

A much safer method, I don’t even know why the women in my family didn’t use it.

Cut out the core of the cabbage with a knife. Put the cabbage in a large pot and pour boiling water over it so that it is completely covered, with the part where the core is cut out at the top, then separate the softened leaves one by one with a fork until you have picked them all.

How to prepare the filling

While the cabbage is cooling, prepare the filling. Place ground pork and cooled rice in a large bowl, season with salt, pepper and herbs. Provence blend is perfect.

How to spin cabbage rolls

Calculate how many cabbage leaves you have of a suitable size, they must be at least the size of your palm to wrap. Divide the filling into as many parts as you have leaves, prepare small balls. Take a cabbage leaf and place the filling on the lower part of the leaf, which was closest to the core. Fold the sheet to cover the filling once, then fold the sheets from the sides and wrap the rest.

Stew

Prepare a pot for stewing. Heat a frying pan with a little oil, add finely chopped onions, fry until tender. Add chopped garlic. When the garlic is fried, add the canned tomatoes and remove the pot from the heat.

Place the remaining, small cabbage leaves in the bottom of the pot, the ones you didn’t have time to wrap the filling in, then arrange the slightly fried cabbage rolls one by one in an orderly manner

We fry cabbage rolls. It is possible not to fry, but this step makes the dish and especially the sauce very tasty. Flour is used to add thickness to the sauce. My mom used to just flour the cabbage rolls and line them up in the pot, but that makes them stick together and the flour clumps together, so don’t be lazy and fry them a bit. After all, so much work has already been done.

Dust the cabbage rolls with flour, lightly, you don’t need much, and fry them in a heated pan. The leaves don’t need to start browning, just a little. We want the flour to get fat and fry a little. Arrange such cabbage rolls directly in the casserole.

When you’ve put them all together, season with pepper, a little salt, and add enough water to cover halfway. Cover with a lid and simmer on low heat. Cabbage rolls made with fresh cabbage will cook in about half an hour. If you cook from winter, harder cabbage, sauté a little longer.

Every time you use it, check whether the liquid is missing and if it is missing, add a little. I usually simmer everything in the pressure cooker so none of the liquid evaporates.

Season with parsley at the very end. Serve on a plate with boiled potatoes or mashed potatoes. Season with sour cream.

cabbage rolls are practically a super food: vegetable, high in fiber, high in protein, very easily modified, you can make regular ones with pork, leaner ones with chicken and very tasty completely vegetable ones. Meat lovers feel like they have eaten a full meaty, filling meal, but they actually eat much less meat. The only drawback is that you need to get ready to cook. This is definitely not a quick dish.

Variants

Stuffed cabbage rolls in one pot with potatoes and carrots. My grandmother and mother used to stew cabbage rolls immediately with shaved potatoes and carrots. Yes, in one pot, they cooked practically all dishes, meatballs, chicken pieces, pork ribs. So, shave the potatoes and carrots, cut them into pieces, and put the potatoes in the pot first, then the carrots, and then the cabbage leaves and cabbage rolls peas. At the end of stewing, season with sour cream, and stew for a few more minutes.

Stuffed cabbage rolls with chicken. Just replace the ground pork with ground chicken for lighter, leaner cabbage rolls.

Vegetarian cabbage rolls Cook rice or pearl barley. Fry onion, garlic, fresh pepper or carrot in a small amount of oil. Season with salt and pepper and herbs. Mix with rice and wrap in cabbage leaves.