Inside Out Egg Roll Patties

Inside Out Egg Roll Patties

--well actually there are no eggrolls involved, inside OR out, but it sure did remind me of my beloved spring rolls!  Our friend Nona Parry shared the original of this, but Joseph tweaked it to be even better since I'm no longer on elimination-phase AIP.



This is kind of a huge recipe...it made eight patties!  Lots of vegetables in each serving, too.  We ate two each last night, and I'm so looking forward to dinner tonight--leftovers never looked so good!

Ingredients

Oil for frying (toasted sesame oil is best)
1 lb ground pork
1 T minced garlic or powder
1 T minced onion or powder
1 t Red Boat fish sauce
1 t minced ginger
1 t Chinese five spice
½ t salt
½ c plus 2 T coconut aminos
4 c coleslaw vegetables (he used red and white cabbage plus grated carrots)

Mix well the pork, 2 T coconut aminos, and seasonings.
Add remaining coconut aminos to vegetables, then mix everything together.
Divide equally into 6-8 patties.
Pan fry on medium heat for 3 minutes per side in as little oil as possible.
Serve hot. Soy or tamari sauce, wasabi, Sriracha or chili sauce are options.




The coconut aminos made them caramelize a bit in the skillet, which was also wonderful...

(Of course they didn't need any sauce or dip at all!)

German-style Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

This dish is traditional for some, on New Year's, and although it's not part of our yearly tradition, it was delicious!  We'll be making it again...with tweaks.

The *original recipe is not Paleo/Primal or AIP compliant, and I needed to tweak it quite a bit...so here is my version!  (AIP with my successful reintroductions, I mean...eggs, seeds...)

You can add tomato sauce if you wish, and some do, but nightshades are off my plate, it appears!  No problem, we loved it anyway.  You can also serve it with mustard, and use almost any combination of meats.  I used ground beef and ground pork. 

Ingredients:

    Cabbage for Rolls:

    1  medium head cabbage
    1 to 2 teaspoons salt
    
    For the Meaty Filling:
    12 ounces ground beef 

    same of ground pork

    1 large egg
    1/3 cup crushed chiciarrones (our usual substitute for bread crumbs, but if gluten or grain's not a problem for you...)

    1 T. gelatin (optional, but helps make up for the lack of gluten)
    1/4 teaspoon ground cloves (I omitted paprika--nightshade!)
    1 teaspoons salt
    1 teaspoons dried marjoram
    1 T. maple sugar
    1-2 T. apple cider vinegar
    1 T. Worcestershire sauce (I make the AIP version)

    Black pepper to taste
    1 to 2 strips bacon or 2 T. bacon grease
    2 cups beef or vegetable broth (or your home made bone broth)

    Extra!

    1 jar or can of German style or home made sauerkraut

    For the Sauce:
    1 tablespoon cassava flour

Prepare the Cabbage

Peel old discolored leaves from the outside of the head of cabbage.

Using a sharp knife, cut the core (stem) out of the cabbage, leaving a cone-shaped hole.

Place the cabbage head in a large pot and add a few inches of water, enough to steam it well.  Add a teaspoon or two of salt. Bring the water to a boil, put on a lid, lower the heat, and steam for several minutes.

Let it cool!

Peel the outer leaves off, carefully, trying not to tear them, and drain. You can always return the cabbage to the pot to steam more if the inner leaves don’t want to come apart. 

I actually made one more little roll for a total of 8 in all...

I love my square iron pan for browning...I browned 4 at a time to avoid crowding.

Make the Filling and Form the Rolls 

 While the cabbage water is steaming or cooling, mix the chopped meat with the egg and other ingredients.  Make into 8-10 log shaped rolls (about 1/3 C. mixture for each roll.

Lay out a cabbage leaf as flat as you can and cut out the thickest vein (only 1/3 of the way up the leaf) to make it easier to roll the leaf. Place a meat roll in the thinner portion of the leaf.

Fold the roll on three sides, then roll to the thickest part (like a burrito).

Tie it like a gift package (in quarters) with kitchen string or, in a pinch, regular thread.

Cooking

Brown the cabbage rolls on two sides in the bacon fat.  Move to Dutch oven or deep pan.

Add sauerkraut (and any leftover vegetables you want...I had some cooked cauliflower and threw it in too.

Add broth (or enough to cover the pan to a depth of 1/2 inch), cover the pan with a lid and simmer 40 to 50 minutes, adding more of the remaining beef broth as necessary.

Transfer the cabbage rolls to a warm serving dish and snip off the string.

Add the cassava flour to the remaining juices in the pot and bring to a boil, stirring constantly, until thickened.

Pour over cabbage rolls. Top with reserved bacon bits, mustard, ketchup, or whatever you desire!

Delicious the next day, too!

* Adapted wildly from https://www.thespruceeats.com/

 

Marinated Chicken and Mushrooms on Cabbage Steaks

MARINATED CHICKEN:

I made this recipe up many years ago, I think--30 at least, so I could have forgotten where I got it!--and LOVED it.  I used white Worcestershire sauce (then called Marinade for Chicken, then discontinued!), then, and we've stopped using the commercial stuff at all, but I decided to try my new recipe for AIP Worcestershire in its place, and it was LUSCIOUS.

Here's how:

2-3 large chicken breasts or 7-8 boneless thighs, cut in cubes
3/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup white wine (I used chardonnay)
3-4 sliced garlic cloves
1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce, home made* (or commercial if you don't mind the weird ingredients)

1 cup of sliced mushrooms, more or less

Mix liquids and add chicken and garlic, marinate at least 6 hours, then cook in the same sauce till chicken bites are done. Remove chicken and quickly saute' mushrooms in the same pan.

Serve it all over cabbage steaks*, as we did here, or rice or potatoes (if you can do grains and nightshades) or cauliflower rice. Or put in a bowl and go for it!

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HOME MADE WORCESTERSHIRE SAUCE

*I used this recipe for the Worcestershire sauce, and it's as good as the traditional stuff I grew up on! https://www.instinctualwellbeing.com/paleo-aip-worcestershire-sauce/ 

I wonder if I can figure out how to make a white version!  Or maybe I'll just try this one I just found: https://www.spicealley.com/blogs/recipes/white-wine-worcestershire-sauce
(Of course, without cornstarch...I'll bet tapioca starch would work just as well.  I'll use honey or maple syrup instead of white sugar, too...)

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*CABBAGE STEAKS

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Slice cabbage from the head, about 1/2" thick slabs.  (If it's near the stem, core that out.) Place on a cookie sheet, coat well with olive oil on both sides, salt and pepper both sides, and roast for 15-17 minutes till edges are crispy.  (If you want more crisp, you can stir the steaks areound and put it back in the oven for a while.  YUM.)  We like this just as a simple side dish, as well...

Sweet and Sour Red Cabbage

This red cabbage dish is apparently traditional holiday fare in some parts of the world–I just like it ANY time! You can make a little or a lot, it’s easy...

Cook up 3-4 slices of bacon to render the fat, or use reserved bacon grease. We get bacon that’s preservative/nitrates/nitrites-free, uncured but smoked. It’s delicious! We can find it at our local grocer’s and love Farmland's brand, but you can also get Coleman Natural Bacon at Costco. Bacon keeps well in the freezer. Find more info about them here: http://www.colemannatural.com/

(You can replace the bacon grease with butter, olive oil or avocado oil, if you need to. You may want to add 1/4 T. ham base from Better than Bouillon* which seems to get the best reviews overall, for that smoky taste.)

Cut up ½ to 1 head of red cabbage, chopped to nice bite sizes (We get the organic stuff from our Hyvee or Natural Grocers, but you may find a CSA group near you that offers organic produce, as well. That’s Community Supported Agriculture, by the way–find out more here: http://www.localharvest.org/csa/ )

Chop half a sweet yellow onion about ½" chunks

2-4 tart apples, chopped (jonathans are wonderful here, but any tart, crisp apple...)

Some recipes call for 1/4 C. brown sugar–but apples and coconut aminos--if you're AIP--or sweet pickle juice make it sweet enough for us, but go for it!)

2-3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar or to taste...

Add 1/4 to ½ teaspoon celery seed or caraway if you like

Put the cabbage into a heavy pot on top of the bacon grease, add the onion and apples, and stir to coat well. If you've cooked bacon for this, you can crumble and add it to the pot. Add organic cider vinegar or sweet pickle juice (or sweet pickle relish, that’s what I had on hand.)

Add salt and pepper to taste, cover, lower heat and simmer till tender. This is even BETTER reheated the next day...

This is wonderful with German- or Scandinavian-style meals, but delicious pretty much any time!

* Love that Better than Bouillon--I seem to use it in a lot of things. It has a bit more sodium than J. should use, so I try to be sparing, but it does have about the best flavor...

Corned Beef, home made style!

And yes, there was CONSIDERABLY more meat than that, J. just put the cabbage on top to cook in our slow cooker!

I looked through a lot of recipes for home-corning beef brisket, and settled on a variation of Sally Fallon's in Nourishing Traditions...it's really a cultured food, like pickles, in her recipe!

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First, I needed BASIC WHEY--easy peasy!

1 large carton plain yogurt with active cultures--not Greek yogurt because it's already strained!  
Put several layers of cheesecloth or one clean bandanna or other soft, fine cloth in a strainer, suspend over a bowl, and dump your yogurt in it.  Leave it to drain overnight and voila', basic whey!

(I salt the now-thick yogurt and add garlic or herbs for a spreadable cheese or dip--yummy!)

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Now the CORNING:

1 2 or 3 lb. beef brisket--we get grass fed beef from Quarter Ridge Cattle, and it's marvelous--the recipe calls for it to be frozen 14 days and then thawed, I imagine to get rid of any bacteria or bugs?  Fallon doesn't say...but we did it anyway!

1 cup whey
2 C. filtered water
4 T. sea salt
2 T. mustard seed
3 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced (my addition!  We love garlic...)
6-7 bay leaves, crumbled
1/2 t. red pepper flakes

I pretty much doubled everything else because you want the brine to cover the meat...and I needed more.  If you just have a small hunk of brisket, plan accordingly.

Mix seasonings (including salt) and rub onto both sides of the meat.  Mix whey and water and pour over meat (and actually I mixed the seasonings into the liquid, which worked fine.)

Cover and marinate at room temp for about 48 hours, give or take, turning the meat several  times a day to make sure the brine reaches everything.  (Some people do this for considerably longer, 10 days or so, and keep the marinating meat in the refrigerator--that works too.)  I used a heavy enameled iron stock pot which let me get at the meat easily and kept the kitties and any other critters out!

The meat looks a big gray after its bath...not to worry, that's what it's supposed to look like.  As long as it smells good, the liquid isn't ropy, and you've turned it often, it should be great.

COOKING:

Apparently Fallon means for this to be eaten raw, since it's in her raw meat appetizers section, but we opted for the more traditional handling.  (Yeah, no thanks...)  SO, the next morning we discarded almost all the brining liquid, reserving the seasonings, put the meat in our slow cooker, and covered it with water and the herbs and spices.* 

This is the only recipe I found that called for whey, often used in home pickling, but it sounded like a great idea...so I did it!

We put the lid on and brought it to a boil, then reduced the heat.  2 hours or so before dinner, J. added the big old wedges of white cabbage you see up top.  When that was tender, we dug in, HAPPILY!

*If you use the larger amount of salt some recipes call for, you need to wash off excess salt, and then even discard the cooking water--happily it was fine without doing that!

We've been fermenting vegetables at home!

These are incredibly healthful, full of vitamins, minerals and probiotics...but MOST important is the fact that they're delicious.  I experimented this time  and used red and white cabbage...hot pink!

Tsukemono (Japanese kraut) 

1 med. head of cabbage, shredded (I used red AND white this time for a pretty magenta!)
1 bunch green onions (or sweet onions, or I used garlic chives this time...)
2 T. fermented wheat-free organic Tamari sauce instead of soy sauce, and this time I used coconut aminos, which seemed to give it that smoky flavor...)
2 T. fresh lemon juice
1/2 T. sea salt
1/4 c. basic whey (I strain plain yogurt, which makes more whey than Greek, which is already strained. This time I added a little of the juice from a jar of Bubbies kraut too, since I didn't quite have a quarter cup of whey...)

Combine everything in a large bowl, cover and let sit for 30 minutes...halfway through, pound with a wooden mallet, knead, or otherwise make sure it's getting juicy.

Transfer to a large mouth Qt. jar, press down to make sure liquid covers, leaving 1" space at the top. Cover tightly with lid or airlock. (As noted, you can use a large cabbage leaf tucked in to hold everything down. Gonna try that next time!)

Leave at room temp 3-7 days, in the first day or two open the jar and keep pressing down firmly to make sure liquid covers it, then transfer to cool storage. YUM.

You can add bits of carrot or beets, if you wish, too...really good!

Oh yeah...the jar WAS full, but I've been...checking it, yeah, that's the ticket!  Checking...