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([personal profile] grayrose May. 9th, 2008 09:35 am)
So this is the famous new red cast-iron pot I bought with my Warrior Wisewoman money. I hope it serves me well into grandmotherhood.

Inside the pot are holubci, cabbage rolls stuffed with rice and minced meat, onions, and garlic. They are traditionally served with sour cream.

I really do have to say they taste better when made in a cast-iron pot.




So: Recipe... Please note that I never measure anything, so this is approximate. Use your good judgment, or else the cookbook "Please to the Table", which has a slightly different version, but it's an awesome cookbook.

1 large cabbage
1 large onion
1-3 cloves of garlic or more, depending on how obsessed you are with garlic
1/2 cup uncooked long-grain rice
1 lb minced meat, or vegetarian meat crumbs. Beef works best in this IMHO, but you can also do a beef/turkey mix, all turkey, chicken, chicken and beef mix, pork and beef mix (I did not tell you this!) or mushrooms. If you are using mushrooms, do yourself a favor and use a variety, not just plain ole white mushrooms.
fresh dill and parsley
salt, pepper, paprika


1. In a large pot, bring water to boil. Cut the stem out of the cabbage and immerse the cabbage in boiling water for 5 minutes. This is done so that cabbage leaves will be easy to peel. Once the cabbage cools, remove cabbage leaves, careful not to tear. You might need to immerse the cabbage in the boiling water a number of times, because the inner leaves will not be soft as you are getting to them.

2. Cook the rice for about 10 minutes or a bit less. The rice needs to be al dente. Some cooks put uncooked rice in the filling, but I tried it with disastrous results so I pre-cook my  rice.

3. Slice the onion and the garlic and brown them in a pan with some paprika for color. If you are doing mushrooms instead of meat, brown them too.

4. Mix the rice with the meat filling, and the onion/garlic, and the chopped dill and parsley. Add salt and pepper to taste.

5. Put your filling in the middle of each leaf and fold in an envelope. The amount of filling will depend on the size of each leaf.

6. Some people fry the envelopes on the seam side, some people roll them in flour and fry them from all sides, and in my family we do neither. After the holubci are fried (or not) arrange them in your pot seam-side down.

7. Cover with a sauce which should have tomato sauce or paste, a tablespoon of ketchup, a bit of stock and/or wine. The sauce should in principle cover the rolls, but too much liquid is not  a good thing, esp. if you pre-cooked the rice and have a cast-iron pot with a tight-fitting lid.

Bring to boil and lower the heat. and braise for about 40 minutes. The longer the better,.actually so if you can do 2 hrs on low heat it comes out great.

Serve with sour cream. If you keep kosher, then no sour cream for you, alas *sigh*

Enjoy!
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From: [identity profile] bachsoprano.livejournal.com


What's holubci?


And, mmmmmmm, cabbage rolls! Yummy!

From: [identity profile] grayrose76.livejournal.com


Holubci is the Ukrainian for cabbage rolls. In Russian it is golubcy, and in Polish golabki. This means "pigeon rolls".

Yes, they are wonderful actually :) :)

From: [identity profile] bachsoprano.livejournal.com


My mom makes them in the winter time - a real treat on a chilly night.

I didn't know the Ukrainian name, so thanks for that!

From: [identity profile] mgsmurf.livejournal.com


Looks like a great use of the new pot.

From: [identity profile] grayrose76.livejournal.com


What does your mom call them?

Yeah, May is a bit off-season for those. Maybe I can make blinchiki next, but they don't require a pot :)

From: [identity profile] will-couvillier.livejournal.com


You should post the recipe! Is meat traditional? I find online recipes to this name but they are vegan with mushrooms and rice.


From: [identity profile] bachsoprano.livejournal.com


What does your mom call them?

Cabbage rolls! :)

So, what's blinchiki?

From: [identity profile] grayrose76.livejournal.com


Meat is traditional, though I have in past made it with mushrooms and even vegetarian meat crumbs when I was entertaining vegetarians. Also a vegetarian version comes in handy when you keep kosher and yet yearn for sour cream with your holubci.

Recipe... I never measure anything so I can only supply approximate values :)

From: [identity profile] rhfay.livejournal.com


My grandmother use to make these, or something similar, but she called them "pigs in a blanket" for some unknown reason. It confused me to no end when one of my classmates had "pigs in a blanket" for his birthday party and they were hotdogs wrapped in biscuits!

I don't ever remember my grandmother serving them with sour cream, though. Still, they were good.

I wonder if you could make this dish with veggie burger, or another veggie meat alternative, instead of real meat? Ah, I see you already addressed that issue. I may have to make this dish someday.



From: [identity profile] grayrose76.livejournal.com


Blinchiki are very thin crepes with filling of sweet cheese (usually made of cottage or farmers' cheese, but I actually think they are best with ricotta) with raisins and cinnamon. I usually serve these with warm homemade jam, but it's been a while since I made jams.

Mmmm.

From: [identity profile] grayrose76.livejournal.com


Wow, never heard of pigs in a blanket! Where is your grandma from?

Yes, you can make them with vegetarian crumbs, I used Morningstar Crumbs and it came out very tasty.

From: [identity profile] rhfay.livejournal.com


My grandmother was born in the US, but her parents were from Slovakia. However, I don't know if it was a traditional family dish, or if it was something my grandmother picked up from her various immigrant friends.

As for the term "pigs in a blanket", it might have been my grandmother's attempt to "Americanize" the dish.

From: [identity profile] grayrose76.livejournal.com


Actually the Slovakian version of this dish is called holupki, which also means pigeon rolls. I am afraid that the name "pig in a blanket" was your grandma's invention :)

From: [identity profile] cathellisen.livejournal.com


Oh em gee.

mmmmm
it looks delish. Thanks for posting the recipe. :D
.

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