Cooking with Colleen: Stuffed Cabbage

I always get excited for Irish food as St. Patrick’s Day draws nearer. Some of my favorite meals of all time include corned beef and cabbage accompanied with a potato or two. However, as the years go by, my family’s distaste for cabbage grows stronger and stronger, thus threatening part of my favorite meal. Stuffed cabbage, we found, was an easy fix to this problem. By adding other elements like meat and tomato sauce to the cabbage, it adds a new and interesting flavor to a traditionally bland meal, though I still remain partial to the traditional boiled cabbage.

Stuffed Cabbage

Serves 6-8

2 large cabbages

2 lbs hamburg

1 cup rice

1/2 lb salt pork

1 large onion

1 6-oz can tomato paste

5 6-oz cans water

1 tsp salt

3 shakes pepper

2 tablespoons sugar

1 tablespoon vinegar

1. Core cabbage and put the core in about 2 inches of water.
2. Cover and steam for 15 minutes.
3. While the core is steaming, I recommend cooking the rice. Typically, I cook the rice in cold water until it is chewy, which is about 5 to 10 minutes.
4. Mix the hamburg and rice together.
5. Dice the salt pork and sauté until clear and slightly melted.
6. Dice the onion and cook it until it is browned.
7. Add the onion, salt and pepper to the hamburg and rice.
8. Put the rind of salt pork in the bottom of a pan and add broken leaves from the cabbage.
9. Put one tablespoon of hamburg mixture in each leaf and and fold like an envelope. Repeat until there are only a few leaves left.
10. Put all of these folded leaves close together in a pan and line the top with the leftovers.
11. Mix the tomato paste, water, salt, pepper, sugar and vinegar.
12. Pour the mixture over the top leaves.
13. Cover and cook at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 90 minutes.