Can you guess the theme of this week’s weekly winner?! (its rolls: things stuffed with meat and then rolled up. I hope you enjoy these as much as I do)
A new spin on an old classic. Stuffed cabbage is already delicious and holds cozy memories from my childhood. It was a meal that we did not have often, since it’s a bit time consuming.
My mom was very busy co-owning a restaurant with her sister (if you know, you know, restaurant owners barely get time off) and my dad worked full time as a salesman, often traveling all over the state to sell gigantic printers. Both of those gave us kids major perks. All we could eat pasta and chocolate milk on tap anytime we were at my Mum’s work. And the leftover “unusable” rolls of printer paper my dad brought home that were easily 5 feet wide. I treated these rolls like homemade wallpaper for our basement. I think I was still in my “interior designer” phase at that time.
But, when my parents had the time, and patience to get the whole family into an assembly line, this was usually requested. I loved rolling the cabbage leaves of course. This is the same recipe that we used way back (25 years ago) but instead of “meat of choice” I am using our Calabrese Chicken Sausage. FYI Calabrese is really just a fancy way of saying spicy italian. As per usual….any ingredients that are underlined below can be found in our on-farm market!
Spicy Chicken Stuffed Cabbage
Cabbage
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1 whole head of cabbage
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Submerge the entire head in boiling water for 10-20 minutes, depending on the type of cabbage you are using and how large it is. You want the leaves to be pliable but not falling apart. Peel off about 16 layers and remove the larger veins, removing the veins is optional.
Sauce
- 2 onions
- 3-5 cloves of garlic
- Salt & pepper
- 2-3 tablespoons tomato paste
- 28 oz diced tomatoes
- 3 cups tomato puree
- Chop the onions and garlic then cook with 1 cup of water plus salt and pepper until mushy. Set aside half of the mushy onion mix, you will add this to your meat mixture in the next section.
- Add tomato paste and keep cooking. Add diced tomatoes and pureed tomatoes and cook on low-medium heat until the sauce thickens a bit.
Meat
- 2 lbs of Calabrese Chicken Sausage
- 1 egg
- 1 cup of uncooked rice
- 1 tablespoon of oregano
- ½ tablespoon of paprika
- Salt & pepper
- Pinch of cloves or allspice
- 1 cup parmesan
- Few dashes of worcestershire sauce
- Mix all the meat ingredients and add the mushy onions. Mix well. If it feels too dry, feel free to throw in another egg.
Assembly!
- Put down a layer of sauce on the bottom of a baking dish.
- Divide the meat mixture between the cabbage leaves. Tuck the edges and roll, think like you are making an egg roll or spring roll or burrito.
- Fill your pan with the cabbage rolls and pour the rest of the sauce on top. Cover your baking dish and cook at 400° for 1 ½ hours.
