Making cabbage rolls at home is much easier than you think!
Sochi Olympics is opening today and I can’t wait to watch the ceremony. 🙂 I also can’t wait to have a Russian feast accompanying it! Authentic Russian food isn’t widely known outside of Russia and it’s a real shame.
I admit not everything on the Russian menu will be love at first site but the same is true for any foreign food. I do know that whenever I make Russian food for my friends or my Canadian husband and his family they love it, with many items getting a call back.
Ingredients
- Cabbage- 2 small heads
- Rice- 1/2 cup
- Olive oil- 2 tbsp.
- Onion chopped- 1 large
- Extra-lean ground beef- 1 lbs
- Extra-lean ground pork- 1 lbs
- Flat leaf parsley chopped- 1 bunch
- Carrots grated- 2
- Salt- 2 tsp.
- Pepper- 0.5 tsp.
- Bay leaf- 2-3
- For the sauce
- Chicken stock- 1.5 cups
- Creme fraiche or sour cream- 1 cup
- Canned Tomatoes crushed or Passata- 2 cups
Instructions
- Freeze the cabbage 3 days before you need it. The night before defrost cabbage and keep it in the fridge until you are ready.
- Cook rice in plenty water the same way you would pasta until al dente, it shouldn't be too soft- about 5 minutes. Drain and set aside.
- In a frying pan heat olive oil and cook onions over low heat for 7-10 minutes until tender.
- Grate carrots.
- In a large bowl combine beef, pork, parsley, onions, carrots, rice, salt and pepper.
- In a medium bowl whisk together stock, crushed tomatoes and creme fraiche. Set aside.
- Place your head of cabbage on a cutting board, cut off the bottom and pull the leaves away from the stalk. Repeat with the second head of cabbage.
- Preheat your oven to 350F/180C.
- Clear your work space, so all ingredients are within reach. Take a cabbage leaf and put 2 tbsp. of filling at the bottom of the wide part of a leaf (see picture above) and roll it like a burrito, tucking sides in. Your cabbage rolls will vary in size slightly depending on the size of cabbage leaves. You will have approximately 30-32 cabbage rolls.
- Pour a cup of the sauce on the bottom of your cast iron casserole or any other heavy bottom casserole and start stacking your cabbage rolls. Half way through add a couple of bay leaves and continue stacking until all cabbage rolls are gone.
- Pour the sauce over cabbage rolls, cover with a lid and bake in the oven for 1 hour.
- Then take the lid off and bake for 30 more minutes.
- Serve with additional sour cream or creme fraiche.
Original Recipes Visit Cabbage Rolls "Golubtsi" @ vikalinka.com
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