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Stuffed cabbage rolls

Author Lina
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Balandėliai: Lithuanian stuffed cabbage rolls

Ingredients

  • large cabbage, the tastiest cabbage rolls from fresh cabbage
  • 500 g lean ground pork
  • 150 g long-grain rice, well washed
  • a few spoons of oil for frying
  • 1 a 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

Instructions

Rice and cabbage leaves

  1. 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.
  2. 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.

Stuffing and wrapping

  1. 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.
  2. 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

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. Season with parsley at the very end. Serve on a plate with boiled potatoes or mashed potatoes. Season with sour cream.

Notes

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.
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.