Cabbage rolls with mushroom filling (gołąbki z grzybami)

[janradder]

When I was a kid and someone would ask me what my favorite food was, I always said, "pigs in the blanket." "Eww," was the most common reply as the person would picture mini-frankfurters wrapped in dough. But what I meant was a meat filled version of these cabbage rolls. I haven't eaten one of those in over twenty years now (and each meat substitute I've tried has failed, though I haven't given up trying to find the right blend of fake meats) so this is the closest I ever come to eating them again (although they're cooked in vegetable stock instead of tomato sauce). This is one of the futzy dishes, because you have to wilt the leaves off a head of cabbage in order to make the rolls, and so far I haven't yet found a method that doesn't involve scalding my fingers. In the end, however, when done right, they are quite delicious.

3 T butter
8-12 oz. portobello mushrooms, washed and chopped fine
2 onions, chopped
3 cups, slightly undercooked rice (cooked with 1 mushroom or vegetable bouillon cube)
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup chopped parsley
salt and pepper to taste
1 head of cabbage (that you have to wilt the leaves off of. There's a semi-decent explanation here)
3 cups vegetable stock (to which you add 1 mushroom or vegetable bouillon cube)

Sauté the mushrooms and onions in the butter until the onions and transparent and the mushrooms are thoroughly cooked. Add them to the undercooked rice along with the parsley. Stir and add salt and pepper to taste, then mix in the egg. Put a spoonful of the filling on one end of a cabbage leaf,



fold the sides over the filling,



and roll it up like you would a grape leaf or a burrito



so that it looks like this:



Place the rolls in a baking dish, seam side down, and continue making rolls until either the filling or the leaves are all used up. Cover the rolls with the vegetable stock, and then cover the baking dish with foil. Bake at 340˚ for 1 hour (or until the cabbage leaves are soft all the way through, even at the stem).

Serve gołąbki in bowls, ladling the broth on top (if you wait to reheat them the next day, they will taste even better).

Comments

[joelarnold.livejournal.com]

Jan -

Seeing all of the meals, etc, you've been preparing for the holidays leaves me in complete awe!

[janradder.livejournal.com]

By Christmas day I'm pretty exhausted by it all, but I really do enjoy the cooking as well as the challenge of timing everything during the dinner so that it's all ready at the right times.

[stephanieburgis.livejournal.com]

Oh, my God. Those sound incredible. I've been bookmarking all these recipes, but this one makes me absolutely drool.

[janradder.livejournal.com]

They are very yummy. Later tonight I should have a post up that links all of the recipes together.