Stuffed cabbage

[Swisskaese]

I think my grandmother makes the best cabbage rolls I have ever had. I will call her tonight for the recipe.

I have never tried to make them, maybe it is time to give it a whirl.

[slkinsey]

One of my favorite stuffed cabbage stories is the time I was in the middle of cooking and realized that I had made enough for around 15 people instead of 3-4. What do to? I called Fat Guy for advice:

"Dude, what am I going to do? I've made way too much stuffed cabbage. I don't think I'll be able to fit this in the refrigerator!"

"Hold on a second." <Short pause with talking vaguely audible in the background> "We'll be over in ten minutes."

[monavano]

I think my grandmother makes the best cabbage rolls I have ever had. I will call her tonight for the recipe.

I have never tried to make them, maybe it is time to give it a whirl.

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My Polish Nana made great ones, but i was so young at the time I picked away all the cabbage. Now, I can't get enough of it and my tummy sometimes wishes I'd cool it

Making the stuffed cabbage is easy. There is a bit of a technique to getting the leaves off intact so if I may, I'd like to offer mine. After years of blanching the leaves ala my Mom's method (take core out, place bottom side down in water and boil away, guessing when it's done. Then burning hands removing leaves) I have my own which I observed on a cooking show.

After taking the core out, place top side down into gently boiling water which just covers cabbage. Use tongs to test leaves for readiness to remove and take away each layer as they are done. Place in collander to cool and drain. Cut out vein and stuff.

My $.02

[Pam R]

After taking the core out, place top side down into gently boiling water which just covers cabbage. Use tongs to test leaves for readiness to remove and take away each layer as they are done. Place in collander to cool and drain. Cut out vein and stuff.

My $.02

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I use the same technique - though we used to have some staff who placed the cabbage in the freezer which softened up the leaves.

[monavano]

I don't have a direct link, but it's Googleable.

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Stuffed Cabbage Rolls from Martha Stewart with those apples ...

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Thankyou!! The recipe used to be on the Food Network website, until they decided to dump ALL of her recipies as a result of the legal action taken against her. FN lost points in my book for doing that, but I digress.

The pic looks awesome. If I weren't going away this weekend, I'd be making golobki on a lazy Sunday!!

[ludja]

My mom (and then me) have mainly made these filled with the ground beef and rice mixture and then cooked in tomato sauce. (No raisins for me please, but my (Austrian) grandmother's homemade tomato sauce usuallly has a very small amount of sugar added to it). We always referred to these as "Polish galumpki's" (sic).

For non-tomato versions, I've seen a bunch of recipes in my Austrian and other Central European cookbooks that cook the cabbage rolls in stock. Often sauteed onions and peppers are added into the brasing liquid as well. When the cabbage rolls are finished cooking, the sauce is defatted, it may or may not be sieved and then is completed by whisking in sour cream and paprika so that you have a similar sauce to that served wtih paprika chicken. (Obviously not a Jewish recipe, in this case, with the combination of dairy with meat).

The filling for these types of cabbage rolls are typically pork or a mixture of ground pork and beef. Other flavorings to go along with the meat in the stuffing are sauteed onions, salt and pepper, marjarom, caraway seeds or cooked bacon.

I also saw some other variations where a strip of bacon is wrapped around each bundle. After they are cooked and removed from the pot in order to finish the sauce, they may be cooked briefly over higher heat to crisp up the bacon a bit.

I think I may just want to try a non-tomatoey version. It sounds like the final taste would be quite different from that which I'm used to. I'll report back if I give it a whirl soon.

[ludja]

...

some of the ancients made a brown sauce instead of the tomato, and they often stuffed them with barley rather than rice.  an interesting thought, if you wanted to add mushrooms and sour cream to the mix, a stuffed cabbage/ stroganoff type thingy.......

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Thanks for all the comment, JEL. Barley does sounds like an interesting variant on rice or soaked bread crumbs as part of the stuffing.

Also, thanks for sharing your nice essay MarcoPolo.

[ronnie_suburban]

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some of the ancients made a brown sauce instead of the tomato, and they often stuffed them with barley rather than rice.  an interesting thought, if you wanted to add mushrooms and sour cream to the mix, a stuffed cabbage/ stroganoff type thingy.......

...

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Thanks for all the comment, JEL. Barley does sounds like an interesting variant on rice or soaked bread crumbs as part of the stuffing.

Also, thanks for sharing your nice essay MarcoPolo.

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A while back, while I was low-carbing, I used some cauliflower -- pre-cooked in stock to soften it up -- in combination with the meat to create my cabbage roll filling. The results were pretty satisfying. Of course, you don't get the same absorption with cauliflower, but I think it's safe to use just about anything that you like, provided you prep it properly . . .

=R=

[Jaymes]

I think my grandmother makes the best cabbage rolls I have ever had. I will call her tonight for the recipe.

I have never tried to make them, maybe it is time to give it a whirl.

Hope you get back with us about this. You'll never regret having your grandmother's recipe for cabbage rolls. Nor for anything else. Boy, I wish I had gotten more of my grandmother's recipes while I still could have.

[Malawry]

For you vegetarians out there, I tried Mollie Katzen's recipe for stuffed cabbage--I think it's in the original Moosewood Cookbook--back when I was a vegetarian craving the real deal. It sucked. It contained all kinds of abominations like cottage cheese and nuts.

On the other hand, once I made stuffed cabbage using Boca crumbles instead of beef. That wasn't half bad flavorwise. The only problem was texture--the crumbles won't hold together like real meat will when cooked, and so the rolls tended to fall apart. I ate a ton anyway.

Ronnie, I remember your post about low-carb stuffed cabbage way back when. It's a beautiful and mouthwatering photo.

[JEL]

call me a lazy ass if you want to...........

what i've found after twenty years of making these things is that if you chop up your cabbage, throw in the meat and rice, dump in the sauce, and cook it as a casserole..............

you did the same thing in about 1/4 the time and effort,,,,,,

guess what, it tastes just as good.......

disclaimer.....(i would never say this if my mother or grandmother were around),,,,,,,,,,,,

[Mistinguett]

I wrote my recipe here some time ago.

For vegetarian or lent, I use a filling of rice mixed with sauteed onion, finely grated carrots, sometimes a few mushrooms sauteed with the onion, salt-pepper-paprika-thyme and a teaspoon of tomato sauce.

I have tried the layered method just recently and for me it's just not the same.

[mizducky]

Growing up in my house, my mother was descended from Galicians , and my dad from Hungarians.  Mom liked hers sweet and with raisens, and dad liked it "salt and pepper" with paprika and no sugar or raisens.  Dad's way won, and to this day, zaltz und pfeffer is the only way I ever make it.  Raisens - ick!

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Now see--that's exactly where I got my familial reflex against sweet things in savory dishes. My family was Litvak (Jews from Lithuania), and thus grew up with savory rather than sweet cooking. My mom especially had a thing against the sweeter cooking from Galicia. I can still see her, after sampling a piece of overly-sweet pickled herring, making a face and muttering about "galitziana herring" as if it were a swear word. "If my mother bought a herring like that," my mom would say, "she'd throw it away out of spite." So, even though my family didn't know from gourmet, I guess they surely did know from foodie-wars!

I once saw a recipe in which halved heads of Savoy cabbage were stuffed with a meat-rice mixture, tied back together with kitchen string, and baked in a tomato sauce ...

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I've seen recipes in which a roughly cabbage-sized oven-proof bowl is lined with cabbage leaves; the entirety of the stuffing in put in the bowl, and then the leaves are folded over the top to enclose the stuffing. Then the whole thing is baked, kinda like a cabbage-wrapped meat loaf. I also think I saw a preparation in which the center of a cabbage head is scooped out and all the stuffing piled in the resulting cavity. I guess there's all kinds of strategies one can take with this cabbage/stuffing thang.

I do I love stuffed cabbage!! I grew up in a Polish household, and we call them golabki. It sounds like "ga- WOOM-key.

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The number of different names for stuffed cabbage, among other Eastern European dishes, has often intrigued me. There's so many cultures that hail from that area, and they often have overlap in cuisines and food names, only with variations in ingredients and pronunciation/spelling respectively. Some of my friends and family called stuffed cabbage holishkes, others call it holupches (spelling an approximation of the phonetic pronunciation), which latter sounds like it's halfway to the Polish pronunciation you give, monavano.

For you vegetarians out there, I tried Mollie Katzen's recipe for stuffed cabbage--I think it's in the original Moosewood Cookbook--back when I was a vegetarian craving the real deal. It sucked. It contained all kinds of abominations like cottage cheese and nuts.

On the other hand, once I made stuffed cabbage using Boca crumbles instead of beef. That wasn't half bad flavorwise. The only problem was texture--the crumbles won't hold together like real meat will when cooked, and so the rolls tended to fall apart. I ate a ton anyway.

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I was doing a little more Googling, and found this recipe for a milchig (vegetarian/dairy) version of stuffed cabbage which looks pretty promising--lots and lots of mushrooms, which is always a Good Thing as far as I'm concerned, though I'm not sure why they bother with the jarred mushrooms along with the dried and fresh ones. And--surprise, surprise! No tomato products of any sort involved! (Note also that here the dish is called "holuptsi" -- I wonder if that's not the correct spelling of what some of my family was pronouncing as "holupches".)

[Gifted Gourmet]

A stuffed cabbage roll, by any other name, would smell just as sweet ... or so the quote used to say ... all things being equal, I now like the name "little doves" ...

(alternate spellings: Holishikes, Holishkas, Halishkes, or Halishkas; pronounced hoh-LIHSH-kuhs). The word "Holishkes" is a Lithuanian-Yiddish translation (one of many translated versions, for instance, "Holishikes" in Polish-Yiddish) of the Russian word "Goluptzi" or "Golubtsy", which means "little pigeons" or "little doves", because it was thought that the packets of filled, rolled cabbage leaves resembled small birds that were at rest. "Goluptzi" or "Golubtsy goes by other names in other languages (Examples: Prakkes or Praakes - both Yiddishized words that perhaps derived from the Greek word "yaprak" which means "stuffed vine leaves", Praches, or Golubtses, "Holubtsi" - "little doves" in Ukrainian, among many other similar-sounding or related names).

source of the quote here

[ludja]

A stuffed cabbage roll, by any other name, would smell just as sweet ... or so the quote used to say ... all things being equal, I now like the name "little doves" ...

(alternate spellings: Holishikes, Holishkas, Halishkes, or Halishkas; pronounced hoh-LIHSH-kuhs). The word "Holishkes" is a Lithuanian-Yiddish translation (one of many translated versions, for instance, "Holishikes" in Polish-Yiddish) of the Russian word "Goluptzi" or "Golubtsy", which means "little pigeons" or "little doves", because it was thought that the packets of filled, rolled cabbage leaves resembled small birds that were at rest. "Goluptzi" or "Golubtsy goes by other names in other languages (Examples: Prakkes or Praakes - both Yiddishized words that perhaps derived from the Greek word "yaprak" which means "stuffed vine leaves", Praches, or Golubtses, "Holubtsi" - "little doves" in Ukrainian, among many other similar-sounding or related names).

source of the quote here

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Interesting... This reminds me of the earlier egullet thread re: the Polish spelling (which I promptly forgot) and pronunciation for stuffed cabbage: here

To add to the list of names, in German, it is the rather prosaic:

gefullte kraut or gefullte krautrouladen (umlaut over the 'u' in gefullte)

Edited September 23, 2005 by ludja (log)

[monavano]

It's fascinating that the stuffed cabbage is represented in so many cultures. It's like the ravioli, or stuffed pasta/doe. Ravioli, empanada, pierogi.......great minds think alike, I say!!

Growing up(in Philadelphia) , I thought golabki were strictly Polish, like we had the market cornered on them!! And then I became a frequent visitor to Pittsburgh were they were called Halupkies. Now...I see it in many names and versions and that it is a childhood memory and family tradition for folks of many, many decents.

Tre cool.

[Malawry]

Mine's in the oven right now. So excited!

I used Joan Nathan's recipe mentioned above--not the cranberry one, but the "classic American" variation listed at the end. The sauce is made of ketchup, tomato juice, brown sugar, sour salt, and I added some Normandy apple cider vinegar instead of a shot of lemon juice. The sauce tasted great. I'll report back tomorrow after we eat some.

[monavano]

Could you please explain "sour salt"? Thanks so much. And...can't wait to hear your results. I am open to trying new versions!!

[Malawry]

"Sour salt" is pure citric acid. It used to be sold in little pellets but now it's available granulated. You can buy it at Kosher supermarkets.

[mizducky]

I got curious about how Jewish cuisine had gotten into using sour salt, and did a little Googling. Didn't find an answer to my question--yet--but did find this interesting article on the popularity of sweet-and-sour combinations in general in Eastern European Jewish cookery, including some more info on sour salt.

[Pan]

Growing up in my house, my mother was descended from Galicians , and my dad from Hungarians.  Mom liked hers sweet and with raisens, and dad liked it "salt and pepper" with paprika and no sugar or raisens.  Dad's way won, and to this day, zaltz und pfeffer is the only way I ever make it.  Raisens - ick!

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Now see--that's exactly where I got my familial reflex against sweet things in savory dishes. My family was Litvak (Jews from Lithuania), and thus grew up with savory rather than sweet cooking. My mom especially had a thing against the sweeter cooking from Galicia. I can still see her, after sampling a piece of overly-sweet pickled herring, making a face and muttering about "galitziana herring" as if it were a swear word. "If my mother bought a herring like that," my mom would say, "she'd throw it away out of spite." So, even though my family didn't know from gourmet, I guess they surely did know from foodie-wars! [...]

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That's funny, because though my grandmother (this is my maternal grandma I'm talking about) was born in South Africa, both her parents were from Vilna Gubernya (the province of Vilna/Vilnius, aka Lithuania).

By the way, my grandma also lined the pan with the bigger cabbage leaves. I'll try to remember to ask my mother if she knows where grandma's stuffed cabbage recipe is. I know we had it on an index card.

[Marco_Polo]

This topic is bringing up some fascinating cross-cultural connections. While stuffed cabbage as most of us are discussing most likely would seem to have Middle European connections and roots, there seems to be something of a universal appeal to the dish. Perhaps because cabbage is something of a world staple vegetable and the leaves naturally lend themselves to stuffing?

I wonder, did my Korean grandmother, transplanted to Hawaii, and later my mother to the West Coast, enjoy making this dish because stuffing cabbage is such an integral part of Korean culture and food? Making winter kim chi, of course, involves the salting of cabbage followed by the elaborate interleaving of a pungent mix of garlic, ginger, chili, fermented fish, etc. That is not to say that this fiery national dish is anything remotely similar to stuffed cabbage! However, it is reasonable to assume that a penchant for cabbage - and for fermented cabbage - plus a liking for stuffing meats and rice in leaves (sesame, lettuce etc) would make the concept of stuffed cabbage a very appealing Western meal adaptation for transplanted Koreans.

My grandmother used to delight in adapting such dishes for 'haoles' - she made a mean Irish stew that was really more like a soy-braised beef but with carrots and potatoes, for example. My guess is that this is why stuffed cabbage became part of our family repertoire, indeed one of our all-time favourite dishes.

Boy am I looking forward to making this again (I haven't eaten it in years, in fact since my mother died), and yes, using Campbells soup for the sauce.

MP

[Marmish]

I make cabbage rolls in the style of my Serbian mother in law. She uses pickled cabbage as well. They sometimes pickle their own in the garage, but I buy big jars of it at the Greek store. The filling is beef and rice, or bread crumbs, salt and pepper. She uses one can of Tomato Soup for a big roaster full. I use about 1/2 a can for a large casserole dish. The soup disappears into a broth that doesn't look or really taste of tomato, but it's not the same with anything else. They are definitely better after a day or two. Oh, and in Serbian they are called sarma.

[mizducky]

This topic is bringing up some fascinating cross-cultural connections. While stuffed cabbage as most of us are discussing most likely would seem to have Middle European connections and roots, there seems to be something of a universal appeal to the dish. Perhaps because cabbage is something of a world staple vegetable and the leaves naturally lend themselves to stuffing?

I wonder, did my Korean grandmother, transplanted to Hawaii, and later my mother to the West Coast, enjoy making this dish because stuffing cabbage is such an integral part of Korean culture and food? Making winter kim chi, of course, involves the salting of cabbage followed by the elaborate interleaving of a pungent mix of garlic, ginger, chili, fermented fish, etc. That is not to say that this fiery national dish is anything remotely similar to stuffed cabbage! However, it is reasonable to assume that a penchant for cabbage - and for fermented cabbage - plus a liking for stuffing meats and rice in leaves (sesame, lettuce etc) would make the concept of stuffed cabbage a very appealing Western meal adaptation for transplanted Koreans.

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Yeah, I love the cross-cultural connections too. I'm still such a novice about the cuisines of the various Asian cultures, but from what I've seen they've definitely taken the "food stuffed into leaves" culinary meme to some pretty impressive heights (and yep, I'd say kim chi definitely counts). And they've been cooking with cabbage for a good long time too, it would seem--here's a fun little overview of the history of cabbage that I found.

Probably fodder for a whole other topic, if it hasn't been done already, would be the whole concept of cross-cultural culinary memes (another one that immediately springs to mind is the archetypal dumpling/ravioli/potsticker/food-stuffed-in-dough thing, but I know there are tons more). Heh. Whenever that Deb Duchon, the nutritional anthropologist, makes a guest appearance on "Good Eats," I find myself thinking what an incredibly cool profession that must be.

Edited September 23, 2005 by mizducky (log)

[Gifted Gourmet]

Probably fodder for a whole other topic, if it hasn't been done already, would be the whole concept of cross-cultural culinary memes (another one that immediately springs to mind is the archetypal dumpling/ravioli/potsticker/food-stuffed-in-dough thing, but I know there are tons more).

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So who among you folks here who are up to your necks in stuffed cabbage will accept mizducky's challenge? She has thrown down the proverbial gauntlet of foods which are cross-culturally related ... mizducky, might you offer us your wit and insights if you accept your own challenge? Perhaps Marco Polo?