- a very difficult and time-consuming recipe. In principle, I can agree with this statement, but still with certain reservations. Indeed, it is not so quick and easy, but if you have a good, proven recipe for cabbage rolls with minced meat and rice, and you know what and how to do, then it is not as scary as it might seem at first glance. My mother taught me how to cook cabbage rolls with minced meat - she showed me how to wrap the filling correctly, and how to prepare the filling, and how long to keep the cabbage rolls on the stove...
And believe me, this science is quite possible to master if you just want to. So, if you love this dish, but don’t know how to cook cabbage rolls with minced meat and rice, I will be happy to tell you all the details today. Welcome to my kitchen, let's host!
Ingredients:
- 10 cabbage leaves (medium size);
- 300 g minced pork;
- 1 onion (medium size);
- 1 small carrot;
- 3 tablespoons rice;
- 100 g sour cream;
- 2 tablespoons tomato sauce;
- salt, black ground pepper- taste.
How to cook cabbage rolls with rice and minced meat:
For cabbage rolls, we choose loose heads of cabbage, not very dense - the leaves are easier to remove from them. Carefully remove the top leaves, trimming them at the base. Cut them into 3-4 pieces to make small cabbage rolls.
In a wide saucepan, bring water to a boil and add some salt. Place cabbage leaves in boiling water and boil. Cooking time depends on the variety and quality of cabbage. For young cabbage, 1 minute is enough, for regular cabbage, 2-3 minutes. Do not overcook the cabbage - the leaves should become soft, but not spread. In boiled cabbage, cut out the thickened areas that are located at the base of the leaf.
Now we make stuffing for cabbage rolls with rice. Wash the rice and boil until half cooked. Grate the onion on a fine grater. Grate carrots onto coarse grater. Combine rice, minced meat, onion, carrots in a bowl (we don’t use all the carrots - leave 2-3 tablespoons to put on top of the cabbage rolls) and rice. Add salt and pepper.
Mix thoroughly.
Place minced meat on the thicker edge of each cabbage leaf (the amount of minced meat depends on the size of the leaf).
Wrap it in a roll.
The minced meat is visible through the open edges, but it’s not scary - it won’t fall out of the cabbage rolls, but they will be neat and even, like fingers.
Pour a little half a centimeter of broth from the cabbage leaves into the pan. Then place the cabbage rolls tightly, trying to fill all the space. We lay out the cabbage rolls layer by layer until we run out.
Place the remaining carrots on top of the cabbage rolls and fill with filling. To fill, combine sour cream with tomato paste, half a glass of cabbage broth and mix to make homogeneous mass. Add salt to taste.
Place the pan on the fire and bring to a boil. After boiling, reduce the heat so that it does not boil too vigorously, and cook for 45 minutes.
Stuffed cabbage rolls with minced meat- Everyone’s favorite dish during the cold season. However, not everyone turns out like their mother.
After preparing stuffed peppers and so many wonderful reviews from people who cooked them according to my recipe, I decided that I definitely need to tell you how to cook cabbage rolls, so that they turn out very, very tasty. Therefore, prepare the pots and heat up the frying pans, today you will forever say goodbye to falling apart, dry and tasteless cabbage rolls.
I will reveal all the secrets of preparing tender, juicy, delicious cabbage rolls with soft and juicy cabbage leaves. I'll tell you how to prepare cabbage and how to wrap cabbage rolls so that they don't fall apart. How to stew cabbage rolls so they don’t burn and what to put in the minced meat to make it juicy. 
- For the filling it is better to take short grain rice, it will hold the minced meat together and the cabbage rolls will retain their shape when stewing. In addition, short grain rice is cheaper. But if this does not happen, take rice, which has a lot of starch and is well boiled.
- Rice in cabbage rolls should be 2 times less than the volume of minced meat.
- Add tomatoes to the cabbage rolls; they will make the filling juicier and tastier. But it’s better to take fleshy tomatoes for cabbage rolls.
- Choose large cabbage and flattened. This type of cabbage has thinner leaves that are easier to wrap. But you can also make excellent cabbage rolls from fresh green cabbage, especially in America, for example, such cabbage is easier to find. If you want the leaves to retain their color when cooked, add 2-3 tbsp. l vinegar into the water when disassembling the cabbage. To save time, Can put cabbage leaves in the freezer a few days before cooking, then defrost and they will become as soft as steamed in boiling water.
- For minced meat, take pork and beef in equal proportions . Pork will make the filling juicy, and beef will give the necessary taste of meat.
- It is better not to add eggs to the stuffing for cabbage rolls., this will make it too dense and not tasty. Rice already holds the minced meat together well, so the cabbage rolls won’t fall apart and the filling will remain juicy
- Stuffed cabbage rolls are better to cook in a cast iron bowl with a thick bottom, so they will cook evenly and will not burn
To prepare cabbage rolls you will need
Ingredients:
How to cook cabbage rolls with minced meat:
Let's prepare rice and cabbage
1. Pour the rice into a saucepan, add water so that it covers the rice 1 cm above its surface, and cook until tender for 15-20 minutes.
2. Boil water in a large saucepan adding a teaspoon of salt. Wash the cabbage and cut the stalk, carefully remove the top leaves. Place the cabbage with the leaves cut side down and boil for 5-7 minutes, the water will reach the middle of the cabbage, then turn the cabbage over and cook for another 5-6 minutes. Start removing the leaves, use tongs or forks to avoid getting burned.
3. Removed leaves Leave to steam in water for a few more minutes to soften them, then remove and place on a plate to cool. So take all the cabbage into leaves
Let's prepare the stuffing for cabbage rolls
1. Peel the tomatoes. To do this, make a cross-shaped cut on the tomatoes, lower them into boiling water for a minute, and then immediately into cold water. The skin will come off easily. Cut tomatoes into small cubes
2. Peel the onions and carrots. Finely chop the onion and grate the carrots on a coarse grater. Fry half the whole onion and half the grated carrots in a frying pan with a small amount vegetable oil. Add two tablespoons of tomato paste and stir, let simmer for a few more minutes, turn off and set aside to cool
3. In a large bowl, mix minced meat, rice, tomatoes, prepared onions and carrots in tomato (step 4). You can add dill or parsley
4. Add salt and pepper, mix the minced meat
Wrap cabbage rolls with minced meat
1. Cut large cabbage leaves in half, cutting out the hard core. For small leaves, cut off the protruding surface from the central stem
2. Place 2-3 tablespoons of minced meat on the cabbage leaf and wrap it in the shape of a cone, the hard side of the cabbage leaf will be wrapped at the base, and the edges of the leaf will be in the wide part. Carefully wrap the edges of the cone (our cabbage roll) inward with your finger
3. Stuff small leaves with minced meat, rolling them into a tight roll, and then pushing the edges of the cabbage roll inside on both sides. Place them in a saucepan with a thick bottom. For such cases, I always use Le Creuset cookware or a slow cooker; it turns out cabbage rolls and stuffed peppers amazingly and never burns.
Making the sauce and frying
1. For the sauce, mix 2-3 tablespoons of good tomato paste (or 6-8 tablespoons of tomato sauce) with 3 tablespoons of sour cream, pour over them boiled water or broth and mix thoroughly. Pour the sauce over the cabbage rolls until it covers the top half of the cabbage rolls. If necessary, add more water or broth. Place the pan over medium heat; when the dish boils, reduce the heat and simmer under the lid for an hour. You can also cook cabbage rolls by stewing them in the oven, but in my opinion it tastes better on the stove)
2. Meanwhile, heat a little vegetable oil in a frying pan and simmer the remaining onions and carrots. 
Place the carrots and onions on top of the cabbage rolls and continue cooking for another 10-15 minutes.
We serve our cabbage rolls with minced meat in a deep plate with the sauce in which they were cooked and fresh sour cream. Bon appetit! 
Preparation
Cooking time
Cuisine: Ukrainian
Servings: 25-30 pcs.
Ingredients
- Cabbage - 2 kg
- Minced meat (pork + beef) - 800 g
- Rice - 140 g
- Tomatoes - 2-3 pcs.
- Onion - 2 pcs.
- Carrots - 2 pcs.
- Tomato sauce or tomato paste - 3-4 tbsp
- Sour cream - 3 tbsp
- Salt, pepper to taste
- Vegetable oil
Cooking method
LET'S PREPARE RICE AND CABBAGE
- Pour the rice into a saucepan, add water so that it covers the rice 1 cm above its surface, and cook until tender for 15-20 minutes.
- Boil water in a large saucepan adding a teaspoon of salt. Cut the cabbage stalk and carefully remove the top leaves. Place the cabbage with the leaves cut side down and boil for 5-7 minutes, the water will reach the middle of the cabbage, then turn the cabbage over and cook for another 5-6 minutes. Start removing the leaves, use tongs or forks to avoid getting burned.
- Leave the removed leaves to steam in water for a few more minutes so that they become softer, and then remove and place on a plate to cool. So take all the cabbage into leaves
LET'S PREPARE THE FILLING FOR THE CABBAGED CARRIAGE CAPBILS
- Peel the tomatoes. To do this, make a cross-shaped cut on the tomatoes, lower them into boiling water for a minute, and then immediately into cold water. The skin will come off easily. Cut tomatoes into small cubes
- Peel the onions and carrots. Finely chop the onion and grate the carrots on a coarse grater. Fry half the whole onion and half the grated carrots in a frying pan with a small amount of vegetable oil. Add two tablespoons of tomato paste and stir, let simmer for a few more minutes, turn off and set aside to cool
- In a large bowl, mix minced meat, rice, tomatoes, prepared onions and carrots in tomato (step 4). You can add dill or parsley
- Add salt and pepper, mix the minced meat
Wrapping cabbage rolls
- Cut large cabbage leaves in half, cutting out the hard core. For small leaves, cut off the protruding surface from the central stem
- Place 2-3 tablespoons of minced meat on the cabbage leaf and wrap it in the shape of a cone, the hard side of the cabbage leaf will be wrapped at the base, and the edges of the leaf will be in the wide part. Carefully wrap the edges of the cone (our cabbage roll) inward with your finger
- Stuff small leaves with minced meat, rolling them into a tight roll, and then pushing the edges of the cabbage roll inside on both sides. Place them in a saucepan with a thick bottom. For such cases, I always use Le Creuset cookware or a slow cooker, it contains cabbage rolls, as well as stuffed peppers They turn out amazing and never burn.
Making the sauce and frying
- For the sauce, mix 2-3 tablespoons of good tomato paste (or 6-8 tablespoons of tomato sauce) with 3 tablespoons of sour cream, pour boiled water or broth over them and mix thoroughly. Pour the sauce over the cabbage rolls until it covers the top half of the cabbage rolls. If necessary, add more water or broth. Place the pan over medium heat; when the dish boils, reduce the heat and simmer under the lid for an hour. You can also cook cabbage rolls by stewing them in the oven, but in my opinion it tastes better on the stove)
- Meanwhile, heat a little vegetable oil in a frying pan and simmer the remaining onions and carrots. Place everything on top of the cabbage rolls and continue cooking for another 10-15 minutes.
Many people like tender, juicy and satisfying cabbage rolls. Minced meat with rice, wrapped in cabbage leaves, acquires a unique taste when stewed and baked in sauce. However, not everyone decides to make cabbage rolls with minced meat and rice at home, believing that this difficult process. Of course, it is necessary to know the secrets of preparing delicious cabbage rolls, but even a novice housewife can prepare them.
Cooking features
It won’t be difficult to prepare cabbage rolls with minced meat and rice if you read the recommendations of experienced chefs.
- It is very important to choose and prepare cabbage correctly. Early varieties usually have softer and more delicate leaves. They are best suited for cabbage rolls. However, you can also use late varieties of cabbage (in this case, the preparation of the leaves will take longer).
- First of all, the leaves need to be softened. To do this, the head of cabbage is first washed well, after which the stalk is removed. Boil water in a large saucepan and lower the head of cabbage into it. Boil, checking the softness of the leaves with a fork. When the top leaves become flexible enough, they are separated, and the head of cabbage continues to be cooked until the required number of cabbage leaves is gradually collected. To soften the leaves of young cabbage, simply immerse a head of cabbage in hot water for 5 minutes.
- Autumn varieties of cabbage almost always have strong veins. The seal at the base of the leaf is cut off, the remaining veins are beaten off with the back of a knife or the side of a culinary hammer.
- Rice for cabbage rolls is boiled until half cooked and only then mixed with minced meat. Otherwise, it will remain hard, and eating cabbage rolls will not be very pleasant.
- Before baking or stewing cabbage rolls with minced meat and rice, you can fry them. This will give them a special taste and allow them to better retain their shape.
- At the end of cooking, you can add a small piece to the sauce in which the cabbage rolls are stewed. butter. This will give the dish a delicate taste.
Stuffed cabbage rolls with minced meat and rice different ways, and some nuances may depend on which method you choose.
Cabbage rolls with minced meat and rice in the oven
- cabbage – 1.5 kg;
- turkey breast fillet – 0.6 kg;
- rice cereal – 100 g;
- onions – 0.3 kg;
- cabbage broth - 0.25 l;
- tomato paste – 70 g;
- sour cream – 50 g;
- vegetable oil – 50 ml;
- salt, ground pepper - to taste.
Cooking method:
- Prepare the cabbage leaves by boiling a previously washed head of cabbage until soft and carefully removing the leaves using a fork and knife. Beat off soft leaves in places where the veins are too dense. Stack them. Pour out the glass of water in which the cabbage was boiled, the rest can be poured out, since you won’t need a lot of cabbage broth. If you purchased young cabbage, which does not need to be boiled, you can use any broth, including vegetable broth.
- Boil rice in a separate pan. It should become soft, but not have time to boil.
- Wash the turkey breast, dry it, cut it into pieces and pass through a meat grinder.
- Peel the onions, finely chop them with a knife or mince them along with the meat.
- Combine minced turkey meat, chopped onion, rice. Add salt and pepper, mix well.
- Place a cabbage leaf in front of you, place a couple of spoons of minced meat on it, stepping back a few centimeters from the edge. Fold the sheet into an envelope, sealing the minced meat inside.
- Fry the cabbage envelopes in a hot frying pan in vegetable oil.
- Place the fried cabbage rolls in the pan.
- Mix tomato paste with sour cream, dilute with vegetable broth.
- Pour this mixture over the cabbage rolls and place them in an oven preheated to 180 degrees.
- Cook cabbage rolls with minced meat and rice at the specified temperature for 40 minutes.
No side dish is required for cabbage rolls. When serving, simply top them with fresh sour cream.
Cabbage rolls with minced meat and rice in a pan
- young cabbage – 1 kg;
- minced beef – 0.3 l;
- pork lard – 100 g;
- rice – 80 g;
- onions – 0.2 kg;
- carrots – 100 g;
- tomato paste – 100 g;
- sour cream – 100 ml;
- Bay leaf- 3 pcs.;
- black peppercorns – 5 pcs.;
- garlic – 2 cloves;
- vegetable oil – 50 ml;
- salt, pepper mixture - to taste;
- water – 0.6 l.
Cooking method:
- Rinse the rice well, add half a glass of water and cook for about 10 minutes until there is almost no liquid left at the bottom. After this, rinse the rice again.
- Peel the onion and cut into small pieces with a knife.
- Peel the carrots and chop them on a grater.
- Heat the oil in a frying pan, add the onion and fry it until golden brown.
- Add the carrots and fry the onions with them for another 5 minutes.
- Pass the garlic through a press.
- Finely chop the lard with a knife or otherwise chop it. It is not forbidden to use kitchen appliances, for example, a blender, a meat grinder.
- In a large bowl, combine minced meat, lard, half the fried vegetables, rice and garlic. Add salt and pepper mixture to taste. Mix thoroughly.
- Boil water in a saucepan. Wash the cabbage and place in boiling water for 5 minutes. Remove, dry, and carefully separate the leaves.
- Wrap 2-3 tablespoons of minced meat in each sheet.
- Fry the cabbage rolls in the same frying pan in which you prepared the frying.
- Mix sour cream with tomato paste and set aside for frying. Dilute with water in an amount of 0.5–0.6 liters.
- Place the cabbage rolls on the bottom of a thick-walled pan, pour in the sauce, not forgetting to salt and season it. Place bay leaves and black peppercorns into the pan.
- Place the pan with cabbage rolls on low heat and simmer them for 40 minutes after the sauce boils.
When serving, cabbage rolls can be topped with the same sauce in which they were stewed.
Cabbage rolls with rice and minced meat in a frying pan
- rice – 150 g;
- cabbage – 1 kg;
- minced meat – 0.4 kg;
- broth or water – 0.2 l;
- sour cream – 0.2 l;
- tomato juice – 0.2 l;
- vegetable oil - how much will be needed;
- salt, pepper, herbs - to taste;
- tomato paste – 50 g;
- onions – 0.3 kg;
- carrots – 0.3 kg.
Cooking method:
- Boil the rice until it is soft enough.
- Boil a little in hot water cabbage (no more than 5 minutes), separate the leaves and, if necessary, beat them.
- Remove the skins from the onion. Chop the onion with a knife.
- Peel and grate the carrots.
- Heat the oil in a small frying pan and fry the onions and carrots in it for 10 minutes. Set aside half. Add tomato paste to the remaining vegetables and simmer them for 5 minutes.
- Mix the reserved vegetables with the minced meat. Add salt and pepper and rice. Knead the minced meat.
- Place a couple of spoons of minced meat on each cabbage leaf and roll it into an envelope.
- Fry the cabbage rolls in a deep frying pan, lowering them into boiling oil.
- Fill in tomato juice, mixing it with fried vegetables and broth. Simmer over low heat for 40 minutes.
- Chop the greens and mix with sour cream. Pour it over the cabbage rolls before serving.
Stuffed cabbage rolls according to this recipe turn out to be very tasty and appetizing; the recipe is one of the most common.
Chinese cabbage rolls with minced meat and rice in a slow cooker
- minced chicken – 1 kg;
- Chinese cabbage – 1.5 kg;
- rice – 0.2 kg;
- sour cream – 0.2 l;
- tomato sauce – 0.2 l;
- fresh dill – 50 g;
- fresh parsley – 50 g;
- carrots – 100 g;
- onion – 100 g;
- vegetable oil – 50 ml;
- salt, seasonings - to taste.
Cooking method:
- Cook the rice and mix with the minced meat. You can boil rice in a slow cooker using the “Soup” program, or in a regular saucepan.
- Finely chop the peeled onion and chop the carrots using a grater.
- Pour oil into the multicooker bowl. Using the baking or frying mode, fry the chopped vegetables for 15 minutes.
- Mix vegetables with rice and minced meat. Pepper and salt the resulting mass.
- Wash and dry the Chinese cabbage, disassembling it into leaves.
- Place the minced meat on the cabbage leaves and form cabbage rolls. Place them in the multicooker bowl.
- Mix tomato paste with sour cream, cover the cabbage rolls with this mixture.
- Start the “Extinguishing” mode for 40 minutes.
After the program has completed, lay out the cabbage rolls and sprinkle with finely chopped herbs.
Stuffed cabbage rolls can be prepared with minced meat of any kind. They turn out especially satisfying if you add rice to the minced meat. There are several ways to prepare cabbage rolls with minced meat and rice, and they are all good in their own way.
How to cook cabbage rolls correctly? Before experimenting, I suggest you master classic version.
Stuffed cabbage rolls are traditionally considered Ukrainian dish, although their analogues can be found in almost any national cuisine. There is historical evidence proving that cabbage leaves were used as a “wrapper” for minced meat as early as Ancient Greece. Since then, the recipe has not changed much: it is still the same White cabbage, the same minced meat and the same stewing technology.
Today you can find a lot of options for preparing cabbage rolls - using Savoy and Chinese cabbage, with mushrooms and buckwheat, in the oven and with pre-frying in a frying pan. To move to the “advanced” level and allow yourself culinary experiments, it’s worth figuring out how to cook cabbage rolls in the classic version. And the classic version is cabbage rolls with meat and rice in cabbage.
On this page you will read about:
To make it easier to understand, here is a step-by-step recipe for cabbage rolls with photos.
Recipe Ingredients
To prepare cabbage rolls you will need:
- 2 medium sized cabbages;
- 1 kg of meat (pork, beef, chicken or a combination of them);
- 1 cup rice;
- 2-3 medium sized carrots;
- 2 large onions;
- vegetable oil for frying vegetables;
- salt, pepper to taste;
- 3 tbsp. l. tomato paste;
- sour cream for serving
How to cook cabbage rolls with meat and rice
- Choosing cabbage for cabbage rolls is not the easiest task. The head of cabbage should be dense, but not hard, otherwise you will not be able to separate the leaves from each other. Size – medium, a small head will make minimal amount cabbage rolls, large heads of cabbage are also not suitable, from them you can make cabbage rolls the size of a sole.
At markets in vegetable aisles they sometimes sell cabbage leaves by weight - just suitable for making cabbage rolls from them. Very comfortably. Alas, such a miracle does not happen very often, so there is only one way out: decide on suitable heads of cabbage and work with what you have.
Cabbage leaves for cabbage rolls
So, choose cabbage, wash the head of cabbage, and remove the top hard leaves.
Boil water in a large saucepan. Prick a head of cabbage with a large fork and place it in boiling water for 3-5 minutes. Choose the time yourself - the top sheets should become soft, but under no circumstances should they fall apart.
Remove the head of cabbage from the water and remove the top few leaves. As soon as you feel that the leaves are not “moving” freely, stop, otherwise you will simply tear them.
If necessary, trim off the thick areas that are located at the base of the cabbage leaf.
We repeat the procedure for the next layer of leaves and the next head of cabbage - we do this until we can remove even, medium-sized leaves.
Minced meat for classic cabbage rolls
Wash and trim the meat for cabbage rolls excess fat, films.
Grind in a meat grinder. To save time you can buy ready minced meat, if you practice preparing homemade dishes from store-bought semi-finished products.
Boil the rice until half cooked. If you take fully cooked rice, after stewing it will turn into a porridge-like mass. Uncooked rice will “take away” the maximum juice from the meat, as a result of which it will become dry and tough.
Place rice in a bowl with minced meat.
It is worth understanding that the amount of “1 glass” indicated in the list of ingredients for preparing cabbage rolls is quite arbitrary. You can take a little more or a little less rice depending on what filling you like in your cabbage rolls. With these proportions, there will be more cereals and carrots with onions than meat, and the dish will turn out to be more vegetable than meat. If you prefer a more substantial, “brutal” version of cabbage rolls, you can reduce the amount of rice or increase the amount of minced meat.
Peel the carrots and grate them.
Carrots add juiciness to cabbage rolls, so do not reduce their quantity. However, it will provide the filling with some sweetness - if this flavor note seems unnecessary to you, use less carrots.
Peel and chop the onion small cubes.
Half rings or even rings are also quite appropriate. The main thing that appearance fillings did not violate your aesthetic perception of food.
Pour into a heated frying pan a small amount of vegetable oil, fry carrots until soft.
Place it in a bowl with the minced meat and rice.
In the same frying pan, fry the onion in oil until slightly translucent and soft.
Place in a bowl, don’t forget about salt and pepper.
Mix well the stuffing for cabbage rolls, consisting of minced meat, rice, carrots and onions. You can also add some fresh herbs, your favorite dry herbs, appropriate seasonings and spices.
Modeling cabbage rolls
Place the boiled and prepared cabbage leaf with the base facing you, put a small amount of minced meat inside.
We roll it up into a tube and hide the edges inside.
Cooking cabbage rolls in a saucepan
Place cabbage rolls in large saucepan with a thick bottom, trying to place them as tightly as possible. Another rule is that they must be placed seam side down.
We dilute the tomato paste in 2-3 glasses of water, pour in the cabbage rolls. The water should not reach the top layer of cabbage rolls by about 2 fingers. In addition, you can add a little ketchup, plum jam, sour cream or unsweetened yogurt. Some housewives stew cabbage rolls by frying them in a pan with carrots and onions.
Place on the stove, bring to a boil and, reducing the heat to low, simmer for at least 45-60 minutes. The cabbage should eventually become completely soft and the filling should be ready.
Serve with sour cream or any sauce based on it. Bon appetit!
And more about cooking cabbage rolls
Stuffed cabbage rolls can very well become a work of art if you approach their preparation with soul. When mixing ingredients for minced meat, try to put maximum diligence into this simple process - and, oddly enough, then the filling will be especially tasty. When rolling cabbage, make sure that everything is smooth and neat - and then the appearance will bring special visual satisfaction, which will directly enhance the pleasure received from the cabbage rolls themselves. Serve food on beautiful dishes - and the simplest dish will become festive.
By the way, in the western regions of Ukraine, this simple dish is still used to check a girl’s readiness for family life: it is believed that if a young woman does not know how to make cabbage rolls the size of her little finger, if she cannot quickly prepare a huge tub of minced meat wrapped in cabbage leaves, if her cabbage rolls unfold during the stewing process or, even worse, fall apart, she will not see a good groom like snowdrops in January. Cook with pleasure, and may your cabbage rolls always be perfectly delicious!
Cooking cabbage rolls is a completely simple task and accessible to any housewife. But there are certain tricks and secrets that will help you make the most correct and delicious cabbage rolls with meat and rice and mine step by step recipe in the pan will help you.
My family simply loves the dishes of Soviet cuisine: a wide variety of cutlets, meatballs, krucheniki, aspic, jellied meat - this is a must and absolutely must be present on the table. And cabbage rolls are the crown of creation! My family believes that a housewife cannot be called a good housewife if she does not know how to cook this wonderful dish.
Cabbage rolls: a recipe with history
Do you know why our favorite dish called "stuffed cabbage rolls"? The fact is that back in the 18th century, pigeons roasted on coals were very popular. Later, when pigeons and quails became a delicacy, they were replaced by “pigeons” - meat wrapped in cabbage leaves, shaped very much like roasted pigeons. Since then everyone has appeared famous name"stuffed cabbage rolls" So, let's prepare everything you need.
Recipe ingredients
- Cabbage fork – 1 large
- Round rice – 250 g
- Pork – 250 g
- Beef (or veal) – 250g
- Onion – 2 pcs.
- Carrots – 2 pcs.
- Sweet red pepper – 2 pcs.
- Tomatoes – 6 pcs.
- Salt – 0.5 tbsp.
- Black pepper – 2 large pinches
- Paprika, nutmeg– 0.5 tsp each
- Sour cream – 2 tbsp.
- Butter – 10 g
Nutritional value per 100 g:
- Calories: 71.12
- Proteins: 3.89
- Fats 2.64
- Carbohydrates: 8.04
Preparing the starting components
Cabbage . Here lies one of the most important secrets of proper cabbage rolls: the head of cabbage should be flat and white, without flaws on the stalk. A flat head of cabbage will ensure the maximum number of leaves of the required size, and the absence of cracks on the base will ensure the evenness of each leaf.
Rice. We will need short grain rice. It has all the qualities necessary for cabbage rolls: it is quite sticky, holds its shape well and, importantly, has a low price.
Meat. Stuffed cabbage rolls can be made with any type of meat, but they will be the most juicy and tasty with assorted minced meat: pork and veal. If you have chicken or turkey on hand, the taste will be more delicate.
There is a small chef's trick: If you don't have time to defrost the meat, you just need to grate it using a grater with large holes. As a result, you will get wonderful minced meat.
Tomatoes. We will need juicy tomatoes, which we need to turn into juice using a blender.
How to properly cook cabbage rolls on a bed of vegetables step by step
Step 1. Use 250 grams of rice. We wash it in cool water. Let the water drain and place the rice in a small saucepan. Fill with water to the top, add a little more, about the thickness of a finger. Cook it lightly until half cooked. Place the finished rice on a sieve and let the water drain.
Step 2. Turn the cabbage head upside down and long sharp knife We cut the stalk so that a five-pointed star is formed. We cut the head of cabbage deep and take out the cone-shaped stalk. Remove the sheets from the fork. We cut very large leaves lengthwise along the veiny, hard part of the leaf. We do the same with all the cabbage. Bring water to a boil in a saucepan and immerse the prepared sheets there. Cook the cabbage under a closed lid for 10 minutes.
And now a secret: to make the leaves soft, you can fold them in plastic bag and place in the freezer overnight. When we take them out, they will be soft and absolutely ready to cook.
Step 3. To check the readiness of the cabbage leaves, carefully lift one of them with a fork and if it becomes translucent, the cabbage is ready. Drain the water and cool the leaves in a bowl with the lid closed until they reach the desired condition.
Stuffing for cabbage rolls with meat
Step 4. Chop the onion. The correct way to chop an onion is to cut the onion in half, leaving the tail. Then we make deep cuts on each half. Turn the onion and chop finely.
Step 5. Peel the carrots and wash them. You need to grate it on a grater with large holes.
Step 6. Now it's the turn of the sweet pepper. We cut the stalk in a circle. Cut into 4 parts and easily remove the seeds and membranes from the pepper. Cut it into strips and then into cubes.
Step 7. Pour 2 tablespoons of oil into the frying pan (this amount is enough to stew the vegetables without being too greasy) and heat them up. Add onions, carrots and peppers, cover with a lid and simmer over low heat.
Step 8. Pass pork and beef (veal) through a meat grinder in equal proportions. A very important detail: the ratio of rice and meat in the stuffing for cabbage rolls should be 1:2 (you need 2 times less rice than meat). This is the key to delicious cabbage rolls. If you want a more meaty or ricey taste, then change the ratio of these ingredients to your liking. Finely chop 1 onion, because it is the onion that will give the filling the juiciness. Salt, pepper and add paprika and nutmeg for flavor. Mix the minced meat thoroughly.
How to wrap cabbage rolls
Step 9. Cabbage leaf cut along the vein and cut off all thickenings. If the sheet is hard, you need to go over it with a rolling pin, like dough, and roll it out. Then use a napkin to remove excess moisture from the surface of the sheet.
Step 10. Place approximately 1 tablespoon of minced meat on each cabbage leaf, give it the shape of a cutlet and gently roll it into a “sausage”, compacting the minced meat. Having rolled a kind of tube, we wrap the ends of the sheet inward. We get a dense, elastic cabbage roll. We do the same with the remaining sheets.
How to stew cabbage rolls in a pan and sauce recipe
Step 11. Prepare the sauce. To do this, add sour cream to the crushed tomatoes, add some salt and pepper, add bay leaf and mix thoroughly. Chopped tomatoes can easily be replaced with tomato juice or tomato paste diluted in water. Pour sauce over cabbage rolls. Place a piece of butter.
Step 12. To prepare perfect cabbage rolls, we will need a heavy, cast-iron pan or cauldron, which will create an “oven” effect. Place a third of the portion on the bottom of the pan. vegetable pillow. Place cabbage rolls on top, as close to each other as possible. Cover each layer of cabbage rolls with fried vegetables so that the vegetables are saturated with juice.
Step 13. Place the pan with cabbage rolls on low heat to simmer for 1 hour from the moment it boils. If desired, use an oven or slow cooker for this process. I often use the classic version - in a saucepan.
Serve the finished cabbage rolls with meat and rice to the table, generously sprinkled with sour cream and sprinkled with herbs. Preparing cabbage rolls according to this photo recipe is an absolutely simple task, but the result will definitely please your loved ones.
After some time, when all stages of preparation have been worked out, you will be able to proudly declare: “Stuffed cabbage rolls are mine.” signature dish! If time is short, then cooking is very suitable for you. lazy cabbage rolls, the recipe with photos of which I will definitely share in the near future.
Video from YouTube: how Zhenya Litvinkovich prepares cabbage rolls with meat and rice
