Stuffed Cabbage Leaves

This week's Food Adventure finds us back at that Foreign Foods cookbook that belonged to my grandmother for some Stuffed Cabbage Leaves, found in the section for Hungary if you were curious.

I've only ever had stuffed cabbage once that I remember, and I recall enjoying it quite a bit.  Why not give it a go?

Ingredients:
1 1/2 lbs ground beef
4 Tbsp. grated onion
1/2 c. butter
1 1/2 c. cooked rice
2 Tbsp. chopped, fresh dill
1 tsp. thyme
1 tsp. salt
12 large cabbage leaves
freshly ground black pepper
3 c. canned tomato sauce

1.  Saute ground beef in butter with onion until lightly browned.

2.  Add rice, dill, thyme, salt and pepper; mix well.

3.  Place cabbage leaves in boiling water for 1 minute.  Drain and pat dry.

4.  Spoon meat mixture on center of leaves; fold over, envelope fashion, and secure with toothpicks.






5.  Place in greased, shallow baking dish; pour tomato sauce over all.

6.  Cover and bake at 325 degrees for 45 minutes.  Remove cover at the last 15 minutes for slight browning.

Notes:

* The recipe calls for 3/4 lb. veal and 3/4 lb. ground beef.  We don't eat veal, so we just used ground beef for all of the meat.  I think that it might be good if it were half ground pork and half ground beef, too.

* I'm not sure that boiling the cabbage leaves for only 1 minute was enough.  I might do it for 2 minutes each leaf next time.  Some of them seemed a little tough.

*  There were several recipes for this in the book.  One of them topped the cabbage with sliced tomatoes and onions with only a little tomato sauce.  I think I will try that next time as the tomato sauce seemed to be a bit overbearing in some bites and non-existent in the others.  I think it will give it a fresher taste, too.

* 1/2 cup of butter is a lot.  It's a stick for those who don't know.  We didn't use a full stick, opting to use the remainder of a stick that was a little over half.  I believe next time I will use olive oil or vegetable oil for a little bit lighter dish.  (Although the butter gravy the meat made was incredible!)

*  I'm not sure who this person is that measures out 4 tablespoons of grated onion.  What a waste of a perfectly good onion!  I diced half and through it in the meat, saving the other half for my mushroom burger later this week.  And, next time, I'm putting onion on top, too!

*  Garlic.  I didn't add it, but I could've.  It wasn't seasoned poorly and was enjoyable as the recipe is written.  But, everything is made better with a little garlic.

*Lots of cabbage left over.  Maybe we'll have us some cole slaw.

Sandy's rating:  4.0 stars

I really enjoyed this dinner.  But, I think the changes noted in the notes section would make it better, and a little healthier.  The sauce seemed to clump on the cabbage pockets and didn't spread out so well.  Topping with sliced tomatoes, onions and a nice dash of pepper would take it right where it needs to be.

Tony's rating:  4.0 

Very good. The meat was seasoned perfectly and the cabbage was divine. Excellent dinner.. If anything, I would have only used one can of tomato sauce and would have used oil instead of butter to make it lighter. I think mixing up the tomato sauce with some grilled onions and fresh tomatoes would be good, too.

Cost to make:  under $10

Cabbage - $2.28 ( .59 per pound)

Onion - .85 (.89 per pound)

Ground beef - $2.72

Rice - $1.09

Tomato sauce - $1.20

Everything else was stock in our kitchen.