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!
