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Production is proceeding at a snail’s pace as I suspected it would.  One has to learn to modify one’s expectations as one ages and becomes more decrepit

 Nevertheless things are proceeding.  The frozen cabbage is now on the counter supposedly defrosting.

According to my reading and research this should happen within about two hours. Not sure which time/temperature zone that might be in, but certainly not here. 

 The filling is made and has been tested and declared tasty (by me):  

 So tasty in fact that I was tempted to say forget the Japanese cabbage rolls and let’s just have pork burgers!   But I do enough squirreling so it’s time to stick with the program.

The seasonings include grated carrot, grated onion; minced, reconstituted shiitake mushrooms,  soy sauce, salt and black pepper (could not find the white pepper). 

 Of interest to me is that in the “land of rice” none of the various recipes I consulted called for its inclusion. It seems to be pretty standard in European versions of cabbage rolls.  

 A few Japanese versions did call for tomato in one form or another. This went from an actual tomato sauce down to a drizzle of tomato kerchup down the middle of each roll. More relied on some combination of dashi, chicken stock and/or shiitake soaking water. 

 Even Shizuo Tsuji (Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art)  has a recipe for cabbage rolls,  Japanese style, for those who doubt that the dish anything to do with the cuisine of Japan.   His version calls for ground chicken rather than ground pork  otherwise his is very similar to the recipe I chose to modify. 

 Edited to add:

Not sure if the recipe is in the book I cited. It is definitely in his other book, Practical Japanese Cooking, co-authored with Koichiro Hata. Just in case anyone is madly searching for it.