Trust me. This easy to make cabbage dinner tastes a WHOLE lot better than I could make it look in this photo. This wonderful-I ate 3 servings-cabbage recipe comes out of a brand new cookbook called Recipes from the Root Cellar by Andrea Chesman. The book is loaded with 270 fresh ways to enjoy Winter vegetables. I'm totally diggin' it.
Never having made any form of cabbage rolls, I turned to two cooking friends for tips. They told me stories of their mothers sitting around the table with other family members rolling and rolling away. Neither one of them actually rolled their own cabbage rolls recipes. My busy-mom friends took the fast and easy route, so I did too. Instead of blanching the head of cabbage to soften the leaves for making rolls, I just sliced it up like I was making a chunky slaw and moved on.
I had to plan when I would cook the rice ahead of time, but the rest of the dish can be prepared in less than 15 minutes. It takes 1-hour to bake it off. If you have an oven that allows you to set a timer to stop cooking, use it. Then, you can go off swimming with the kids or take a nap while the oven does all the work. That's what I did. I can't tell you just how nice it was to come in from being at the pool and smell dinner waiting for us in the stove. I need more recipes like this one in my life.
HERE'S ALL IT TAKES
- 1 medium head green cabbage, roughly cut into 1/2-inch slices
- 1 pound lean grass-fed ground beef
- 1 cup cooked white or brown rice
- 1/2 large onion, finely chopped
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 2 garlic cloves, minced or 2 teaspoons garlic powder
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1/2 teaspoons fresh ground pepper
for the sauce
- 2 cups unseasoned tomato sauce or tomato puree
- 1/2 large onion, finely chopped
- 1/4 to 1/2 cup mild apple cider vinegar (artisanal cider vinegar is recommended)
- 1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
- 1 teaspoons ground ginger
- salt & fresh ground pepper
HEAT the oven to 350ºF.
In a large bowl, combine the ground meat, cooked rice, onion, eggs, garlic, salt and pepper. Mix it up using your hands to get it thoroughly blended. Set aside.
In another bowl, whisk together the tomato sauce, onion, apple cider, brown sugar, and ginger. Season with salt and pepper. Add more cider vinegar as needed for a sweet-sour sauce (artisanal cider vinegar is less sharp-tasting than supermarket cider vinegar and works better in this sauce).
In a 9- by 13-inch baking dish, lay down a layer of half the cabbage. Then, divide the meat mixture in half and lay down a layer of meat over the cabbage. Again, use your hands; it's easier. Pour half the tomato sauce all over the first layer. Add another layer with the other half of the cabbage, again the meat. Finish with pouring the remaining sauce all over the top.
Cover the casserole with foil, poke a few holes to allow steam to escape. BAKE 1-HOUR. Serve hot with mashed potatoes or warmed wheat rolls.
Cook's Notes: For the cider vinegar, I had Bragg Organic Apple Cider Vinegar on hand and used it.
Russian style cabbage dinner before it goes in the oven.
Never mind the photo, I know we will devour this casserole! I tried the rolls before with the parboiled leaves and it was way too much work. This will be easy schmeezy! Thanks, can’t wait to try it.
Hi Jane! We nearly finished off this casserole tonight; there’s just enough for one lunch.
Let me think how many servings this made…
Cheryl = 2 servings
Cheryl’s husband = 2 servings
Cheryl’s 3 kids = 1 1/2 servings
My husband = 2 servings
Me = 5 servings (not all in one sitting!)
One serving left for lunch tomorrow.
TOTALS 13 1/2 servings spread over 2 days. Not bad.
Great, I will have plenty to make extra plates for my elderly parents. I probably won’t do potatoes, but have a loaf of homemade ww bread in freezer.
I blogged about your Cabbage Rolls tonight. It was a very tasty dish. As you can see I had trouble following your recipe! Was I right, the ground beef was not supposed to be cooked first? Anyway, I will make it again!
I blogged about your cabbage roll recipe tonight. We both really liked it and will make it again. As you can see I had trouble following the recipe! Was I right about the ground beef not being cooked first? Thanks again, it was yummy.
A good day to you all.
I am happy to have come across your site today. You have put a lot of thought and effort into your pages and the photographs, all very good, make all the difference.
I live in a metric country (e.g. one cup = 250ml, 1 ounce = 28g), which is not really a problem. We adjust slightly up or down.
What is a bit problematic is that call some things by different names. One of my important questions, which pertains to the above recipe, is:
How do you define tomato sauce and tomato ketchup.
Our tomato puree is just a pure strained tomato sauce of a ‘barely pourable’ consistency, and tomato paste a highly concentrated version of this that will stick even if the can is turned over, and definitely needs a spoon to work with.
Perhaps if you could direct me to recipes for tomato sauce and tomato ketchup it would help me grasp the differences.
This recipe reminds me of a similar one that my Grandmother brought out from Russia in the dim and distant past, and which I remember as a child. I think she used Tartaric acid to make it sour. Certainly one of her cabbage soups used this, and the recipe appears at the foot.
I have no wish to crowd you with a whole lot of questions, but if you are amenable I will ask each question as it arises with a relevant recipe.
I cook for myself and my friends and family. I am no great chef but I do enjoy cooking very much. Food is a gift from The Creator. What we do with the food is our gift back. I am also beginning to dabble in baking.
Thank you very much for your time.
Kind regards.
Lawrie
Mary’s Venerable Sweet ‘n Sour Cabbage Soup
½ head of cabbage, core removed and finely shredded
1 cube chicken stock
1 litre water
sugar or syrup
tartaric acid or lemon juice
1 tomato, peeled and chopped
½ small onion, finely sliced (optional)
salt to taste
pinch of white pepper
1 Cook all together except salt, sugar and lemon.
2 When cabbage is tender add salt, and then balance sugar
and acid or lemon juice to taste
Cook’s Note! May be good with a beef bone for flavour.
Very thin soup. Thicken with a bit of cornflour?
Lawrie,
Thank you for sharing your grandmother’s recipe and thank you for all your kind words.
When I write of using tomato sauce, I’m referring to the tomatoes that have been cooked/stewed then pureed, and strained. We can buy cans of tomato sauce. However, I have a particular brand of stewed paste tomatoes that I love to use, and I will puree them, skip straining them, and use them for a quick sauce.
Tomato paste is the same same. Tomato ketchup, for us, is a condiment that’s occasionally used in cooking. We just call it catsup or ketchup.