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/

 

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...

Kielbasa and Kraut Medley

Another oldie but goodie...

KIELBASA & KRAUT MEDLEY

Joseph fixed dinner last night, while I curled up by the chiminea he got for me, reading a new Kelly Armstrong book by a warm, crackling fire...is life good, or what?!  He chatted with an old friend on the phone as he cooked, then when he brought the plates out by the fire, told me he'd taken photos, just as I've been doing for the new shared food blog.

Hooray!  I said "then you can write it up for Starving Artists?"--and lo, he did, and you'll find it below!  This is one of my favorite cool-weather dinners, hearty and somewhat German in flavor, savory with meat and onions and fruit...YUM. 

Somehow, eaten by the fire on a lovely November evening, cooked by my love, it tasted even better than I remembered!

Kielbasa & Kraut Medley

4 6-8” kielbasa (about 2 lbs)
2 C sauerkraut
4 small apples (Jonathans are good), cored and sliced
1 large onion, quartered and sliced
Olive oil, coconut oil, or bacon grease.

Brown the kielbasa well in a little bit of oil or grease.  Remove from pan, add onion and cook until glazed.  Add apples and cook until slightly browned.  If you’re drinking beer or hard cider while cooking, you can add a little of that.  Add kielbasa and kraut.  Stir up well, cover and simmer for about 15 minutes.  Serves six--or makes wonderful leftovers!

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(Of course I have to nib in and add my thoughts on this...)

You  can use turkey kielbasa (or smoked sausage) if you're watching your fat intake--tastes great anyway--and tart apples are definitely marvelous in it.  (This isn't the place for sweet, bland, mealy apples that fall apart when cooked!  You want that tart-sweet flavor.  We like to buy local Jonathans, as  mentions, organically grown if possible.) 

I like sweet Bavarian sauerkraut in this, the kind with caraway seeds, if I haven't made my own--and that I haven't done in a lot of years!  The above illustration was painted 30 years ago, from a batch of my own home-canned Bavarian-style stuff--it still hangs in my kitchen today, a lovely reminder of those years.  (It's gouache and sepia ink on a warm tan matboard background.)

Making sauerkraut is dead easy, as far as the process goes, but it can be a tad tricky.  The right temperature range and careful cleanliness are needed to insure proper fermentation. 

When my late husband and I lived on our little back-to-the-land farm and I canned mountains of stuff from our own organic garden, I made some of the best and worst I've ever tasted--and one memorable batch that was in the root cellar when it flooded, and came out smelling of kerosene from the lantern that decided to float.  Needless to say, that batch didn't get tasted--it didn't even make compost!  Ewwwww...

According to The Joy of Cooking--still my favorite cookbook!--sauerkraut's healthful qualities were recognized as early as 200 B.C. when workers on got a daily ration as they worked on the Great Wall of China.  It appears it was first mentioned in America in 1776, and as expected, it was primarily eaten in German communities.  (Sauerkraut literally means "sour cabbage," in German.)

I couldn't find my old recipe--it was NOT in The Joy--but this site comes close: http://www.kitchenproject.com/kpboard/recipes/HOMEADESAUERKRAUT.htm

Remember, sauerkraut gets milder with cooking--in the wonderful dish above, it just adds a lovely tang.  If you think you hate sauerkraut, you may find differently when you try this recipe!

We hope you enjoy this hearty dish as much as we did--great with hard cider or a rich lager like Sam Adams, too...