Stuffed cabbage recipes are found all over Europe and the Middle East. Whether it’s the Hungarian version with paprika and sauerkraut, the Romanian style with smoked meat, a Polish sweet and sour version made with raisins, Caucasian stuffed cabbage cooked with sliced potato, Turkish with pine nuts and yogurt sauce, or the Lebanese and Egyptian version that’s made with minced lamb, this poor-man dish have been feeding generations of grateful families and have become a staple of the Ashkenazi cuisine.
It is customary to serve stuffed vegetables for Sukkot and for Simchat Torah.
Sukkot is the holiday of the harvest, and the stuffed vegetables symbolize the abundance of the crops.
Simchat Torah is the day of celebration of the Torah, marked at the end of Sukkot. The stuffed vegetables here symbolize a torah scroll, wrapping the real essence inside. Stuffed cabbage is the most popular dish for these holiday in the Ashkenazi cuisine.
Hungarian stuffed cabbage
Course: Main courseCuisine: HungarianDifficulty: Advanced6
servings45
minutes2
hours55
minutes4
hours8
minutesAs the ground beef in the recipe meant just to add a bit of flavor, this recipe is very easy to adapt to a vegan diet. Simply replace the ground beef with ground meat substitute of your liking, and it will taste just as great.
INGREDIENTS
1 whole green cabbage
½ cup Jasmine or sushi rice
1 lb. ground beef (or vegan ground beef substitute, see note above)
1 yellow onion
2 teaspoons Kosher salt
Pinch black pepper
- For the sauce
1/4 cup olive oil
3 sliced garlic cloves
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 lb. sauerkraut
3-4 cups tomato juice
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoons Kosher salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper
DIRECTIONS
- Two days before cooking remove core from cabbage, seal in a freezer bag (or a few layers of plastic wrap) and put in the freezer. After a night in the freezer transfer cabbage too the fridge, preferably inside a large bowl, and let it thaw. After 12 hours you will have soft and pliable cabbage leaves, ready to be stuffed.
- Put rice in a medium bowl, cover with water and let stand for 1 hour.
- In the meantime carefully separate the leaves from the cabbage and put in a bowl. Chop the inner leaves that are too small to stuff and set aside.
- To make the sauce, put oil in a wide pan with sides of 2½ inches or more. Heat oil on a medium heat, add garlic and sauté for 30 seconds while stirring. Add tomato paste, mix and cook for a couple of minutes. Add sauerkraut and the chopped cabbage and mix. Set aside.
- In a separate sauce pan bring 3 cups of tomato juice to boil, together with paprika, sugar, salt and pepper. Remove from heat and set aside.
- Drain rice and transfer to a large bowl. Add beef, onion, salt and pepper and mix well.
- Use a small serrated knife to trim the thick part of the cabbage leaves vein, to make rolling the leaves easier.
- Put a couple of spoonfuls filling at the bottom of each cabbage leaf, fold sides over, then roll the leaf to cover the filling, but not too tight. Arrange in the pan over the sauerkraut. Repeat with the rest of the leaves.
- Put pan with stuffed cabbage on medium-high heat, and gently pour hot tomato juice all over. You can add another cup of juice, if liquid does not reach about half way to the cabbage rolls.
- Bring to boil, then cover and reduce heat to low. Cook for 2 to 2½ hours, basting rolls occasionally with the sauce in the pan. If there’s still a lot of liquid in the pan, remove lid and cook for another 30 minutes to reduce the sauce. Let cabbage rolls stand for 15 minutes before serving.