Stuffed Cabbage
Cabbage leaves rolled around a ground pork and beef filling with uncooked rice, then braised for hours in a ketchup-based sauce. A traditional, slow-cooked comfort dish.
- 1 head green cabbage
- 1/4 cup short-grain rice, uncooked
- 3/4 pound ground pork, ground twice
- 1/4 pound ground chuck
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon Hungarian paprika
- 3/4 pound onion, diced
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 24 ounces ketchup
- water, as needed
- Core the cabbage. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and place the cabbage in, cut side down.
- Let it simmer for several minutes, removing the leaves one by one as they soften, piling them on top of each other so the residual steam continues to soften the rest.
- Once cooled, trim the hard vein from each leaf with a knife so they're roughly the same thickness throughout. You should end up with 18 to 20 leaves.
- Set aside the 15 nicest leaves for rolling. Thinly slice the remaining leaves — they'll line the pot and can also patch any torn leaves later.
- Peel and dice the onion.
- In a medium frying pan, sauté the diced onion in the olive oil over medium-low heat until well softened, then turn off the heat.
- Stir the uncooked rice into the softened onions and let the mixture cool — the rice will absorb some of the onion flavor as it sits.
- In a large bowl, combine the ground pork, ground chuck, salt, pepper, paprika, egg, and the cooled onion-rice mixture. Mix well.
- Divide the meat mixture into 15 portions.
- Place a portion of filling in the center of a cabbage leaf near the bottom edge. Roll it up, tucking in both ends to enclose the filling.
- Line the bottom of a 4-quart ovenproof pot with the reserved sliced cabbage. Arrange the rolls on top, then pour about 2 cups of the ketchup over everything.
- Add water until the rolls are covered by at least 1/2 inch.
- Cover with a lid or foil and bake at 350°F for 2 hours and 15 minutes.
Chef's Note: Using uncooked rice in the filling rather than pre-cooked rice is a deliberate choice — the raw grains absorb the flavor of the meat, onion, and braising liquid as everything cooks together over the long bake, resulting in a more integrated flavor than rice cooked separately and folded in afterward. Lining the pot with the leftover sliced cabbage before adding the rolls isn't just about using every part of the head; it also protects the bottom layer of rolls from scorching against the pot during the long bake.
This is a genuine labor-of-love recipe — between blanching the cabbage, hand-rolling 15 individual portions, and the more-than-two-hour bake, it's best planned for a day when you have time to spend in the kitchen rather than a quick weeknight dinner. The payoff is a dish that reheats and even improves over the next day or two, making it well worth making in a full batch.
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