Everyday Dorie: Stuffed Cabbage

January 14, 2022 at 12:01 am | Posted in breakfast things, cook the book fridays, everyday dorie, groups, other savory, savory things, veggies | 2 Comments
Tags: everyday dorie, savory, vegetables

Stuffed Cabbage is a recipe that might be more appropriate for a book called All Day Dorie than Everyday Dorie. Never mind the three hours of cooking time (hands-off, in the oven, no big deal), I think I probably spent close to two hours assembling the dish. No joke, I had to take a coffee break in the middle of it. But that’s ok– I did it on a cold, grey weekend day when I didn’t want to leave the house and was up for a kitchen project.

I’d never made stuffed cabbage rolls before. I don’t eat ground beef or pork sausage, so I swapped these filling meats for ground chicken and turkey sausage. I couldn’t see how I could successfully get the cabbage leaves off the head in one untattered piece without blanching the whole head, so I just did that, rather than blanch the individual leaves as Dorie instructs. It was a process of removing a few leaves at a time and re-dipping the head in water to easily peel off the next layer, and I do have some leftover blanched cabbage still on the head, but I’ll use that in a soup or make okonomiyaki with it this week. I was able to fill and roll the leaves pretty easily and I skipped the step of securing them each with a toothpick. They were fine.

For the tomato sauce, I didn’t pay attention (i.e., I totally didn’t tread the instructions first) to the fact that the ingredients were supposed to go into the Dutch oven in layers along with the assembled rolls. Instead, everything for the sauce went into the pot at once and I snuggled all the rolls down into the mix. I was kind of irritated with myself, but figured that the cook time was so long that all would be fine. And it was! These are a delicious winter dinner (or a few dinners–even a half-batch was a big batch). I didn’t really know what to serve the cabbage rolls with, as they’re kind of complete on their own, with a meat and rice filling, veggies and a sauce. I just went with a little cucumber and sour cream salad and sprinkled some crispy fried onions on top. I also meant to sprinkle the rolls with parsley, but after all that time putting them together, I completely forgot.

For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see how the group liked this one.

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Totally a labor of love…and totally had the same problem as you…getting the cabbage leave off in tact was the hardest part I thought! I wasn’t sure I would ever make these again while making them, but was pleasantly surprised with how tasty they were and thought…maybe I would haha. Love your dish btw. 😃

Comment by isthisakeeper— January 17, 2022 #

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I served these with crusty bread since it was a thin sauce that went with it. This was a labor of love that was very good but not sure I want to repeat the work. LOL.

Comment by Diane Zwang— January 20, 2022 #

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a whisk and a spoon