Ukrainian cabbage rolls with meat filli
Cabbage rolls are a food that uses cabbage leaves that are wrapped around a filling. Cabbage rolls are very common in Central, Eastern, Northern and Southeastern Europe. Different varieties of cabbage rolls can also be found in West Asia, China and even North Africa. Meat, sometimes mushrooms, onions, garlic, even tofu, different varieties of rice, barley groats and the like are often used as fillings.
In Ukraine, cabbage rolls (голубци) have a special place in food culture. The style of their preparation and the fillings vary greatly across the country. In some regions, cabbage leaves are replaced with fresh beetroot or grape leaves, as for the filling, I have come across in various recipes from corn to buckwheat in addition to mushrooms or meat. I found cabbage rolls with meat to be one of the most common, and I also added carrots and boiled rice to the filling.
Preparation time: 1 hour preparation, 1.5 hours baking
Level: Medium
Quantity: for a larger group (about 40 cabbage rolls)
Ingredients:
1 large head of cabbage
800 g minced meat, I used a mixture of minced pork and beef
350 g carrots, coarsely grated
1 large onion finely chopped
600 ml of tomato puree
150 g long-grain rice, cooked
150 g sour cream
For frying, 3 tablespoons of cooking oil and about 20 g of butter
For seasoning sea salt and black pepper 0.5 teaspoons of herb mixture (basil, oregano, thyme, marjoram) or herb mixture of your choice.
Sour cream for serving
Preparation:
- Boil the rice. Calculate two parts water to one part rice, bring to a boil and reduce the heat to low and let it simmer for about 15 minutes. The water is absorbed and the rice is tender.
- Clean the cabbage from the upper, dirty leaves. With a sharp knife, dig out the cabbage root relatively deeply, so that the attachments of the cabbage leaves also come off. Remove the cabbage root.
- Boil water in a large pot, carefully place the cabbage in the water so that it is completely covered. Boil for about 5 minutes.
- Carefully start removing the leaves from the top layer. Collect the leaves in a large bowl, let them cool a little and cut the leaves in half lengthwise, so that you remove the thick petiole, or for smaller leaves, cut the petiole thinner with a knife
- Prepare the whole cabbage in this way. The inner leaves are not suitable for making rolls.
- I put the leaves back in boiling water for 5 minutes to make them even softer, but you can skip this step. Save the cabbage boling water for later.
- Prepare the filling. Grate carrots. Heat oil and butter in a pan. Place 2/3 of the carrots in a pan and fry on medium heat for about 10 minutes. Add half of the tomato puree and cook for another 10 minutes until the mixture thickens.
- Finely chop the large onion or grate it with a coarser grater.
- Place the minced meat in a bowl, add onion, carrot and rice, season with salt, black pepper and a mixture of herbs.
- Fill with half-cooled cabbage leaves. Place 1 tablespoon of the filling on a cabbage leaf, fold the edge on the leaf side triangularly over the filling so that a cone is immediately formed. Wrap the cabbage leaf around the resulting cone and gently press the upper end, with the softer part of the cabbage leaf, into the cone.
- Another option is to wrap the filling in a cabbage leaf and push both ends inside the cabbage roll. The third option is to fold the edges of the cabbage leaf over the filling on both sides and roll the leaf so that the filling stays inside the leaf like a package.
- Place the finished cabbage rolls tightly on top of each other in an oven dish or oven pot.
- Prepare the sauce, fry the remaining grated carrots in a little oil for about 5-10 minutes, add 3-4 tablespoons of sour cream and the rest of the tomato puree.
- Pour the sauce over the cabbage rolls. Pour also the water used bor cabbage boiling over the rolls so that they are about 2/3 covered.
- Heat the oven to 250 degrees C, put the cabbage rolls in the oven and cook for 30 minutes without covering. During this time, the top layer will brown slightly.
- Cover the cabbage rolls with a lid, lower the oven temperature to 200 degrees and cook the cabbage rolls for 1 hour.
- Serve the finished cabbage rolls with sour cream. Ideal to eat warm, but also not bad if cold.
Ready!!
