Cabbage Rolls with Meat Stuffing and Wild Mushroom Sauce

Name: Cabbage Rolls with Meat Stuffing and Wild Mushroom Sauce
Prep time: 45 min
Cook time: 45 min
Total time: 45 min
Yield: 6
Cuisine: Global
Ingredients: 473 milliliters 480 ml chicken broth or stock; 946 milliliters 630 g cooked white rice; 59 milliliters 60 ml white wine, preferably dry vermouth; 1 Tbsp all-purpose flour; 454 grams 455 g mixed fresh wild mushrooms, cleaned, trimmed, and coarsely chopped (Go for an exotic mix, but if your market offers only portobello, cremini, and shiitake, these will work as well.); 59 milliliters 60 ml heavy cream; 1 Juice lemon; 28 grams 30-g package dried mixed wild mushrooms or porcini; 2 Tbsps minced onion; 454 grams 455 g coarsely chopped boneless pork or chicken (thigh meat will be juicier, but white meat works as well); 6 servings Salt and freshly ground pepper; 2 large heads savoy cabbage; 2 Tbsps unsalted butter; 473 milliliters 480 ml boiling water

You can never have too many main course recipes, so give Cabbage Rolls with Meat Stuffing and Wild Mushroom Sauce a try. This recipe serves 6. One portion of this dish contains roughly 25g of protein, 25g of fat, and a total of 521 calories. It will be a hit at your Thanksgiving event. If you have savoy cabbage, flour, butter, and a few other ingredients on hand, you can make it. To use up the dry white wine you could follow this main course with the White Wine Frozen Yogurt as a dessert. From preparation to the plate, this recipe takes approximately 45 minutes.

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C/gas

Equipment you will use

Oven

Fill a large pot—one in which you can submerse a whole head of cabbage—with water and bring to a boil. (It is helpful to use a pot with a strainer insert, such as a pasta pot, so you can pick up the insert to remove the cooked cabbage, rather than struggle with spoons or tongs.)

Ingredients you will need

Cabbage

Pasta

Water

Equipment you will use

Sieve

Tongs

Pot

Add the first head of cabbage and parboil for about 10 minutes.

Ingredients you will need

Cabbage

Remove and let it drain in a colander in the sink until just cool enough to handle. Meanwhile, cook the second head of cabbage, drain, and cool.

Ingredients you will need

Cabbage

Equipment you will use

Colander

Gently pull the outer leaves off each cabbage. (Some of these might be soggy or torn.) Set these aside to line the baking dish. It helps to cut off some of the coarse stem at the beginning and while peeling off the leaves. Your goal is to have 12 to 16 perfect medium to large leaves in which to roll the stuffing. Set aside the small leaves for lining the baking dish as well. If you can get more than 16 leaves to stuff, do so—you can never have too many little doves. Pat each leaf dry and set aside on a kitchen or paper towel.

Ingredients you will need

Stuffing

Cabbage

Roll

Equipment you will use

Baking Pan

Paper Towels

In a small frying pan, melt 2 tbsp of the butter over medium heat, add the onion, and cook until lightly browned.

Ingredients you will need

Butter

Onion

Equipment you will use

Frying Pan

Remove from the heat and put the onion, rice, and chopped meat into a food processor; season with salt and pepper; and whirl until well mixed. You want to be careful not to overprocess the filling—it should have the consistency of raw meatballs, and not be mushy.

Ingredients you will need

Salt And Pepper

Meatballs

Onion

Meat

Rice

Equipment you will use

Food Processor

Lay out the "choice" cabbage leaves on a work surface and divide the filling among the leaves: The exact portion size for each one will depend on the size of the leaf. (I dollop the filling on with a tablespoon, placing it near the bottom of the leaf). If any stem remaining on the leaf seems especially tough or thick, you can pare it down with a vegetable peeler.

Ingredients you will need

Vegetable

Cabbage

Equipment you will use

Peeler

Roll the leaves up, folding in the sides and ends so the stuffing is enclosed.

Ingredients you will need

Stuffing

Roll

Line the bottom of a 9-x-12-in/23-x-30.5-cm baking dish with any leftover cabbage leaves. (If, after lining the dish, you find you still have a lot of leftover leaves, store them in the refrigerator and eventually chop them, cook in butter, and season with salt and pepper to serve as a side dish for another meal!). Rest the rolls on top, seam-side down; they can be crowded together, just so long as they don’t overlap. If you run out of room in one baking dish, start a smaller, second one, lining it the same way.

Ingredients you will need

Salt And Pepper

Cabbage

Butter

Roll

Equipment you will use

Baking Pan

Pour in the chicken broth (it should come about a third of the way up the sides of the rolls, and not submerge them). Dot the tops of the rolls with the remaining 3 tbsp butter.

Ingredients you will need

Chicken Broth

Butter

Roll

Bake for 40 minutes to 1 hour, or until the tops are golden and slightly crispy.

Equipment you will use

Oven

Remove the cabbage rolls to a platter and keep warm (you can tent them with foil and keep them in the turned-off oven). Discard the leaves lining the baking dish, but reserve the broth, which will be added to the mushroom sauce.

Ingredients you will need

Mushrooms

Cabbage

Broth

Roll

Sauce

Equipment you will use

Baking Pan

Aluminum Foil

Oven

Soak the dried mushrooms in the boiling water for at least 30 minutes, until softened. Strain the soaking liquid through a fine-mesh strainer lined with a paper towel or cheesecloth, placed over a bowl. Squeeze the mushrooms until the juices are all extracted. Set the liquid aside. Rinse the mushrooms with cold water, pat dry, and coarsely chop.

Ingredients you will need

Mushrooms

Water

Equipment you will use

Sieve

Cheesecloth

Paper Towels

Bowl

In a large frying pan, melt the butter over medium heat and cook the onion until translucent.

Ingredients you will need

Butter

Onion

Equipment you will use

Frying Pan

Add the chopped fresh mushrooms and soaked dried mushrooms, and cook, stirring often, until all the mushrooms are soft and golden.

Ingredients you will need

Mushrooms

Sprinkle the mushrooms with the flour, season with salt and pepper, and stir constantly until the mushrooms are well coated. Slowly add the reserved mushroom soaking liquid, continuing to stir until all the liquid is blended in and has thickened.

Ingredients you will need

Salt And Pepper

Mushrooms

All Purpose Flour

Add the wine, cream, and any broth remaining in the pan in which the cabbage rolls were cooked, adding each one separately, stirring constantly, and allowing the sauce to thicken before adding the next.

Ingredients you will need

Cabbage

Broth

Cream

Roll

Sauce

Wine

Equipment you will use

Frying Pan

Add the lemon juice and lower the heat. Simmer the sauce for a good 15 minutes or so, until thick and rich. If the sauce is still too thin after 15 minutes, raise the heat and cook at a gentle boil, stirring, until reduced further.

Ingredients you will need

Lemon Juice