Submitted by listener Jeff B.
One pound of 80/20 ground beef
1 head of cabbage
¾ cup of rice (I use jasmine)
¾ cup of water
¼ cup of bread crumbs (add more if needed)
1 tablespoon granulated garlic
1 tablespoon granulated onion
1 tablespoon of ground black pepper
1 teaspoon of powdered beef stock
1 tablespoon celery salt
1 tablespoon MSG (optional as some people have an aversion to it)
3 large eggs
46 ounces of tomato juice or V8®
1. Place your jasmine rice in a strainer and rinse your rice to remove starches. The water will run clear when the rice is clean. Always rinse your rice.
2. In a small sauce pot bring ¾ cup of water to a boil. You want a 1 to 1 water to rice ratio as you’ll want the rice to absorb some of the flavors from the meat mixture.
3. Allow rice to cool to room temperature. You do not want to mix your meat mixture with warm or hot rice.
4. In a large soup pot, (one that will fit the head of cabbage in) fill half-way up with tap water. You’ll want to account for the volume of the cabbage. Turn your stove on high to begin boiling the water.
5. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.
6. In a large bowl, combine the spices, eggs, meat, and rice until well combined. Your mixture should hold together and feel stiff to the touch. If you create a meatball and it falls apart or feels loose, add the breadcrumbs to the mixture to stiffen it up. The mixture should feel sticky but not super wet or unable to hold its shape. This is the most important step in this recipe. If you cook the stuffed cabbage and it doesn’t have the right stiffness, it will fall apart on the plate when you cut into it.
7. At this point, your water should be boiling. Place cabbage in the boiling water. Let the cabbage boil for 5 or so minutes. With kitchen tongs, begin to peel back the layers of the cabbage. You should be able to cut at the stem of the cabbage and pull the individual leaves off of the cabbage. Once you can handle the cabbage cut the harder part of the spine off of the cabbage. This will make the cabbage leaves easier to roll.
8. Place a handful size chunk of meat mixture into the cabbage leaf. Weight or size of the mixture varies as there will be different leaf sizes or you may want smaller or larger rolls. Roll the cabbage leaf around the meat mixture and wrap the ends of the leaf to seal the meat mixture in the cabbage leaf. It should be a sealed cylindrical shape. Repeat process until the meat mixture is used up.
9. Place the stuffed cabbage in an oven safe baking dish.
10. Once the dish is full, pour the tomato juice or V8® in the baking dish. Try to cover as much of the stuffed cabbage as you can. You want to fill as much of the baking dish up as you can without overflowing it. You also want to be able to lift the dish into the oven and if it’s overfilled, it will spill and create a mess.
11. Cover the dish with aluminum foil.
12. Bake for 1 hour.
13. Once baked, let the stuffed cabbage rest for 15 minutes.
14. Serve and enjoy
Submitted by listener Jeff B.
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