Cabbage Rolls

For probably 20 years of my life, I thought I didn't like cabbage. I was a fool. Cabbage is a fantastic vegetable. It is especially fantastic when you use it as a vehicle for ground meats and rice, also known as a cabbage roll. They are basically the reason I decided that I'd finally give cabbage a try. I watched my mom make them, and realized that everything about them seemed delicious except the cabbage. It turns out that was true, and even the cabbage tasted better than I expected and way better than it smelled. I've been making cabbage rolls since that day. They taste great, they're really easy, and you can make them ahead and cook them all day in a slow cooker. They also taste even better the next day, so if you make them you've already got tomorrow's lunch.

Ingredients:

1 head of green cabbage

1.5 lbs ground beef

1 lb sausage

2 C rice

1 large onion chopped

1 red bell pepper chopped

2 jalapeños diced and separated (I hope you appreciate the tilde;it took forever to figure that out)

2 tbsp salt

1 tbsp ground pepper

2 tbsp dried basil

2 bay leaves

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp crush red pepper (optional)

1 28 oz can whole tomatoes

1 14.5 oz can stewed tomatoes

1 10 oz can tomato sauce

Making these isn't difficult, but it's a bit of a process. If you have someone there to help you, it makes it go way faster. The first part is the worst. Unless you don't like touching ground meet because then the second part is the worst. Neither is difficult, but the first is tedious and you have to stand over a hot pot of water. Which reminds me, you should put a pot of water on to boil.

Cabbage is basically a big ball of large greenish-white leaves connected to a core. To be able to roll the leaves you need them separated, so cut the core out which will allow the leaves to come apart. If you try to remove them as is, they tear too easily because they're pretty stiff. Oh wait, you've got water boiling. That was a wonderful idea. Throw the whole thing into the water (don't actually throw it). Cabbage floats so I like to take a tongs and shove it under the water until air bubbles stop coming out of it. You can also turn the temperature down now that the cabbage is in the water. Now just take that tongs and start peeling each layer off by grabbing a single leaf at the core end and pulling. Once it's free, put it on a plate. I like to take one of the huge forks usually used for holding meat while it gets sliced and use it to hold the cabbage. It also wouldn't be a terrible idea to put a paper towel on the plate where you're putting the leaves. I usually take about 15 leaves off the cabbage. It should look approximately half as large as when you first started.

Ideally you have someone helping you who can take care of this part while you get the cabbage leaves ready, but if not take care of as much of this as you can while you wait for the water to boil. You need to chop the onion, pepper, and dice the jalapeños. Now mix together the meat, onions, red pepper, one of the jalapeños, rice, basil, salt, and ground pepper. You need to seriously get all up in there and mix that stuff because if you don't there will be pockets of rice or basil or whatever and that's not a pleasant bite.

Before you roll them you need to cut out the thick part of the stem. I didn't get a before picture, but it should be pretty clear what you need to cut out. The picture above shows the amount of meat mixture you need for each cabbage roll. It's equivalent to two meatballs slightly larger than golf balls. As for actually rolling, you can see there are two "wings" on the bottom. The first step is to bring those up and cross them over each other.

Above is a picture of that first step. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the next step, but it's pretty simple. The sides that stick out wider than the meat need to be tucked in so that it will roll into a consistent package. Then just roll it up.

Well those look lovely. They can be set off to the side at this point because there's a couple of things that need to happen before they're needed.

This is the cabbage that's leftover after removing the leaves for the rolls. Chop it up into fairly large pieces. If you put this in the bottom of the pan you get delicious cabbage that has soaked up tons of flavor from the juices of the meat and tomatoes as they drip down. Put the cabbage either in a five quart or larger pot, dutch oven, or equivalent size slow cooker.

Back to the big ol' pile of rolls. On top of the chopped up cabbage add the stewed tomatoes. Honestly you can really use whatever tomato products you want, although you will want the can of sauce to get the appropriate amount of liquid. In general I like whole tomatoes that I tear apart myself and I had stewed tomatoes on hand, so that's what I used. I also sprinkle a little more basil, crushed red pepper and salt on the tomatoes. Now get all of those cabbage rolls in there.

I probably should have used a larger pot, but everything worked out. Now crush the whole tomatoes and add them and the sauce along with the other jalapeño, more basil, the bay leaves, sugar, and crushed red pepper. If you don't want it spicy just omit the jalapeño and crushed red pepper throughout. Everything is ready to go. Turn your slow cooker on high, or put a lid on your pot and put it in a 250 degree oven. I let them cook for six to seven hours, so that the cabbage is nice and tender and the rice is fully cooked. The rice is also why you need to have enough liquid. If you're doing it in the oven make sure you put a sheet tray under the pot if it's anywhere close to the level that I had mine. If I hadn't there would have been a huge mess in my oven.

Well that just looks like a big pot of red stuff with some green mixed in.

That looks better. A delicious meat mixture packaged in a cabbage leaf. If you don't like cabbage after this then you are not me; I told you earlier this is why I like cabbage now. By the way, good luck not destroying your mouth on these because they are molten on the inside and stay that way for a super long time.