Stuffed Cabbage

Join me in my kitchen, with my grandson Lorenzo, as I prepare this delicious northern Italian dish. Cabbage rolls are very much part of my culinary heritage. My family grew Savoy cabbage, and I grew up on sarme, the Istrian interpretation of stuffed cabbage. Sarme are a more sour preparation, since our cooking on the eastern edge of Italy had many Slavic and Eastern European influences. The polpette di verza of Lombardy are sweeter (though the wine in this recipe provides a nice balance). Whatever the differences, I love all kinds of stuffed cabbage, and love to serve them at special family occasions.
These polpette make a fine appetizer as well as a main course. I serve the rolls in a warm bowl, so the sauce can be scooped up with each bite. For a main dish, accompany them with Riso alla Lombarda, polenta, or mashed potatoes. Tutti a Tavola a Mangiare!
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Braised Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

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Here we are in the kitchen with Lorenzo. Ciao, Lorenzo. How you doing? All right, we’re going to make stuffed cabbage. I don’t think I taught you that. No, no, not yet. And what you need, of course, is a good salvo cabbage, a nice one. And what you want is the leaves ultimately. So, what we need to do is we need to get the core out. So you go around and I’m trying what I’m trying to do is at the end to get all the way down so I can pull this core out. So let’s go in there. Okay, it’s coming. So here we go. And I’m going to take this and I’m going to put it in boiling water. And what’s going to happen slowly the leaves from the cabbage will release itself. But still you want to leave them a little bit in here so they become kind of soft and then take them out and we put them in ice water just like that to cool off so we can work with them. So now we’ll make the sauce. The base of a good sauce and ritual is a pista. So a pistata is some onions. You’re taking mental notes here, right? Yes, definitely. It’s carrots, celery, some rosemary, some sage, garlic, and [Music] voila. This is a pistata. So, Lorenzo, put just some oil in the pan. Go ahead. A little more. That’s enough. That’s good. Let’s put half of the pasta for the sauce. Half of the pasta. You can put it all in here. And this is sausages out of the casing. Trying to get everything. Yeah. Yeah, that’s good. I’m going to put some water. I’m going to soak this bread. And Lorenzo, just turn the bread until it’s completely soaked. And then you kind of squeeze it out of the water. And that’s going to be part of the filling. So here I have the pistata. I’m going to add the onions to the pistata now. And let that welt. And yeah, you squeeze it. Good job. And now now kind of crumple it. That’s it. Crumple it all in there. And do that to all of that bread. So let me check on the sauce here. The onion is wilting. That’s nice. The heart of the savoy cabbage was left. We’re going to cut it and use it in the sauce. Okay, I’m going to throw this into the sauce so it could cook all together. Smells delicious. Uh-huh. Okay, so that’s welting again. You know the sauce. Nice and easy. I think we’re working on the sauce now. On the filling, I’m going to whisk this egg. And I’m going to put all of this parsley here. Go for it. All Yeah, I think so. I’m a parsley fan. I love parsley, too. I’m going to put some cheese, too. Who doesn’t love cheese? Mhm. Okay. So, I’m thinking about salt, but between the cheese and the sausages being salty, I don’t think we will we need any of that, right? Yeah. Well, if we need some, we’ll add some. Okay. So, here is the egg. Let me whisk the egg. And now you can really get your hands in there. So, the onions are wilted. I am going to add the tomato. These are plum peeled tomatoes from the can. You know how I squash them and just add them right in there. We need some more water to put all of that in here. So that’s good. So let me see. Oh, it did a good job. Ohom homogeneous. Homogeneous homogeneous. There you go. This back on. So it comes back to boil. So here is our cabbage right here. Let me take So you see each leaf has a rib and that kind of is difficult to fold in. So what you do you slowly with a pairing knife just take that part off. And now you can bend it. Can I try? Sure. Like this. Yeah. Just that’s perfect. And now we can begin to roll our cabbage. You make take a little bit of now a little bit of meat just like that. Enough to fit in here. And what you do is you begin to roll. You roll. Roll. When you’re halfway through, you tuck this in so it doesn’t come out the side. Just like that. And you continue to roll into a nice compact little package. So now we’ll do one together. So, give me a little roll and you take yourself a little roll. It’s a little much or No, that’s fine with me. That’s it. Here. It’s okay. It broke a little bit here, but yeah, this end. Tuck this in. Then tuck that in one side. Then tuck the other side in. You’re getting it. Very good. So, that’s nice. And you put it right there. So, go ahead. [Music] You’re going to be finishing those. I’m going to start nestling these in the sauce. Nice and easy. And as you see, I reduced the sauce. [Music] This last one. So, you know, I’m kind of nestling him so that the flap is underneath because when it cooks, the cabbage will adhere to the meat. Okay. And since this is layered, you cannot go in and mix. You have to periodically go with the wooden spoon in the corner and kind of check and move them around a little bit. But what works well is that you just shake the pot like that, you know, so that you move them from underneath so that they don’t stick. I always predicate about tasting things. You We have one left. Put it in the corner here. Where? Right there. Okay, there we go. Okay. Put the lid on. 45 minutes. It should be done. Now, when you cook in the kitchen, you clean in the kitchen. So, it’s time to clean up. Of course, Iria is a border uh uh situation between Western Europe and Eastern Europe. And there’s a lot of diversity there in cultures, which is beautiful. There’s remnants of those influences through the ages that is evident in the cuisine. For example, s the stuffed cabbage. Same is a Turkish word. So coming up even from the Ottoman Empire crawled up uh the coastline there and you know left in some of those dishes uh are still cooked and I love making them and people love them. But the cabbage you see how it kind of cooked down reduced. Yeah. And the cabbage itself wilted kind of around this. So let’s plate the cabbage rolls. So you see what I’m doing? I’m keeping this underneath so that my bowl Ah, there you go. So you don’t need to clean. Nice one. And they really become deliciously soft and the meat in there is, you know, M. And this I think is nice if you bring it to the table family style like this. Huh? I think it’s perfect. Yeah. Good one. Mm- Just like that. I think give me the out two plates. Put put them here. So, one is for me, one is for you. Wow. Okay. I got a whistle from you. Not finished yet. A little bit of sauce over these. And why don’t you present it to our audience right there? That looks good. All right. And there it’s you and I. A little bit for me, a little bit for you. So, what I’m going to do is I’m going to cut one because I really want them to see what’s in there and how does it look. The nice little bundle of delicious uh stuffing that you made. Wow. And let’s see how it tastes. That’s the way to do it. Good. Delicious. Wow. It’s nice and juicy and light. You would think it’s it’s heavy, but it’s nice and light. We work very hard. We deserve a little dessert. So, I thought that we would kind of build something quick. Absolutely. To have after our cabbage. Awesome. I’ll taste mine. You can taste yours. A little strawberry, a little chocolate. Here’s the nuts. M. These strawberries are so, shall I say, jammy. They’re delicious. And of course this uh uh wafers. Delicious. Nice crunch. Delicious. Now we certainly have enough. What do we say at the end? We have to invite them. Exactly. Absolutely. So one, two, three. Come and join us.