I am now a full fledged cabbage roll lover. I usually make them just like my Great Aunt Patsy... ground beef, white rice, white cabbage, and condensed tomato soup... But the red cabbage in my farm basket this week was just calling out to be rolled :-)
Red cabbage is slightly peppery when compared to the white cabbage that I normally use, so I wanted the filling to match the wrapper. I tried to beef up the nutrition value of my rolls, while still keeping that comfort food quality I love about them.
How do 2 week old greens look so fresh and crisp you might ask? I just learned a little trick and am so stoked at how well it works. To keep your greens fresher longer, store them in a plastic bag and before sealing it tightly, blow air into the bag like a balloon. It has something to do with the carbon dioxide we expel in our breath or some kind of mumbo jumbo like that. The point is that these mustard greens looked and tasted great even after a long Frigidaire stay. Okay, where was I? Ingredients...
5 cloves of garlic (I love me some garlic, so vampires beware), 1 cup brown rice, and natural, nitrate free regular sausage. The sausage really pairs well with the peppery cabbage. I am so glad I went that route instead of the normal ground beef.
Ready. Set. Chop!
Or grate... I grated my giant carrot, minced the huge shallot, pressed the garlic, chopped the greens, and cooked the brown rice.
Although there is no picture, I promise you that before chopping, grating, or pressing I put a big pot of water onto boil* so I could let my cabbage have a good hot soak to soften the leaves.
Mix it all up!
Obviously exclude the cabbage from the ALL part of that step. If you were to mix the cabbage in, then what would you roll it up in, huh? I just use my hands to mix. Cabbage roll rolling is a messy business. You might as well dig in with both hands right from the start.
Cut a Rug Leaf !
Again... no pics of the cabbage soaking in the boiling water*. Sorry. Using tongs and great care, remove your cabbage from the boiling water and peel off the outer leaves. I cut into the core of the cabbage, scoring it, before boiling to make it easier to remove the softened leaves. After removing a few leaves, stick that head (the head of cabbage, not your head) back into the water to soften up the next layers of leaves.
Red cabbage is stiffer than the white cabbage that I am used to, so I had to toss a couple leaves back into the water to get a little softer for rolling purposes.
Don't stop now. You're on a Roll!
I have heard of lots of measurements for how much filling to roll in your cabbage leaf, from 1/4 cup to the size of a golf ball. I just eye ball it. The cabbage is very forgiving. If you use so much that the filling is spilling out or the leaf cannot possibly wrap all the way around it, guess what? You used too much. Just unroll and take some out. After I finished rolling and photographing this roll, I decided it was not full enough. I unrolled it and added more yummy goodness to its innards.
Start rolling at the base of the leaf. After your initial roll, fold in the two sides and continue rolling to the end of the leaf. Place the roll seem side down in your baking dish.
Squeeze them in there...
This doesn't really need to be expanded on, does it?
Ooh Saucy!
This ingredient was not pictured earlier, but it is an important one and not to be forgotten. I used a jar of Trader Joe's Organic, No Salt Added Marinara Sauce. Pour the sauce in and shake it all around. Really, just jostle it a little to help the sauce spread out evenly. Please do not go all cray cray shaking a pan of red sauce all over you kitchen and then blame me.
Cover your dish and bake it at 350 degrees for 2 hours. I know, TWO HOURS! This was a surprise to me too, but it makes sense. When I use the thinner and more delicate white cabbage, I only need to bake it for 45 minutes to an hour; however, red cabbage is firmer and sturdier, so it makes sense that it would take longer to cook. We were starving after an hour because we spent that hour throwing around the softball outside while dinner cooked, so we went ahead and ate one roll. It was still good, but definitely required a knife to cut. After the additional hour or baking our red cabbage rolls were absolutely heavenly. They cut apart with just our forks and melted in our mouths with a delicious combination of flavors. It was well worth the extra hour of cooking.
So Yummy!
*Boiling Water side note - You might notice that my cooked red cabbage looks a little blueish-purple. This is because I did not know that the alkaline minerals in tap water would turn the cabbage blue, unless an acidic agent, like lemon juice, vinegar, or wine, was added to the pot. Apparently it only takes about a teaspoon of whatever acidic substance you prefer. Next time I will probably use rice wine vinegar because of its mild flavor.
Extra! Extra!
There is always extra filling left over, but don't let it go to waste. My little man is always hungry... and the act of me cooking tends to send him into a feeding frenzy... So I pressed the last of the filling into a patty and grilled it up for some pre-dinner, toddler noshing.
In my normal cabbage roll recipe I use white rice that does not need to be cooked prior to rolling. When cooking up the extra filling into patties, the rice will expand and start to stick out all around the patties. Some people then call them porcupine patties, but we affectionately refer to them as roadkill burgers. It is the West Virginia in me coming out ;-)
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