Gołąbki

As stated in my post yesterday, I decided to make a big batch of gołąbki to freeze for the winter. It's really not all that daunting a task if you have a method to your madness. I like to start with two heads of cabbage...I core them out and place one in the steamer until the outer leaves get pliable, then I take it out and replace it with the other head to soften up while I work getting the leaves off the first one.

I use my pasta pot to steam the cabbages...makes it easier to handle them.



While the cabbage is steaming, you can chop your onions, mix your ground beef, pork and spices, then add the tomatoes, rice and egg....this is a large batch, so I'm using two eggs.





You mix all that stuff up real well, and then start stuffing the cabbage leaves. I use enough to make a meatball..2 - 3 Tbsp? per leaf. Roll the from the bottom up, fold the left side over, roll till it's done then tuck the end into the meat mixture with your finger. Place seam side down in your roasting pan.


Now cover the golÄ…bkis with the rest of the tomatoes, and pour over a can of tomato sauce



Then I like to slice up the leftover cabbage and scatter it over the top.



Now lay  a nice layer of bacon all over the top , then cover with foil and put it in the oven for one hour.




Remove from the oven after one hour, remove the foil and return to oven for 30 more minutes.



After bacon is nice and crisp, remove from oven and serve.
Gołąbki

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Polish style stuffed cabbage rolls

   1 large cabbage
   1 lb ground beef
   1 lb ground pork
   1/2 cup rice, uncooked
   1/2 lb bacon
   1 14.5-oz can stewed tomatoes
   1 15-oz can tomato sauce
   1 onion, minced
   1 large egg
   1 tsp granulated garlic
   1 tsp celery salt
   1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
   1 tbs Bell's Seasoning
   1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped


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Heat the oven to 350°F

Core the cabbage and place in a steamer until outer leaves become workable. Remove from steamer, take leaves off and return to steamer.
Continue procedure until you have enough leaves to stuff.

Mix the ground meats with the onion, egg, rice, half the tomatoes, spices and parsley.

Place cabbage leaf on board and fill with a meatball-sized dollop of ground meat, roll up and tuck in the ends.

Place roll seam side down in roasting pan.

When all rolls are made and in the pan, top with remaining tomatoes and tomato sauce.

Top that with a layer of bacon slices.

Cover with foil and bake for 60 minutes, then remove the foil and bake 30 more minutes, or until bacon is done.

Dave,

Wow, does that ever look good!  I want to try this.

To freeze them do you put on the tomatoes, tomato soup, and bacon and then freeze the whole pan or just freeze the stuffed cabbages?

What we be a good substitute for Bell's Seasoning?  I don't think that is available here in Georgia.

Does bacon traditionally top the dish? That part looked a bit odd, but I'm sure it's absolutley delicious. And the cabbage rolls are so cute

Boy that sure does look good. Both you and Tas~ have made really nice versions of this. I think I might have to try my hand at it this winter. Would adding any cheese to it really "ruin" its authenticity?

Hoser wrote: Rivet wrote: Would adding any cheese to it really "ruin" its authenticity? I guess it would John, but don't let that stop you...maybe make some each way and see what you prefer. After all...experimentation is a huge part of cooking.....right? Go for it!

agreed!

regarding the bacon/cheese/authenticity quesiton, i have come to two conclusions:

sounds pretty wonderful to me. it might push the dish a little away from poland and towards greece, but who cares ~ split the difference and call it romanian!

Well you two, thanks for the encouragement! They are now on my list to make, and will get to them. Got some oniond soup, neapolitan pizza and something else to make first, but they are inbound for sure to the hacienda.

TasunkaWitko wrote: john - see some of my notes on the slovak version, holubky. adding fresh, diced mushrooms did a lot for producing a surprising amount of depth, and there were a few other improvements ehre and there. also, my most recent round of making these, i added paprika to the mix along with uncooked basmati rice. this did not work out well, possibly because i used too much of both!   good luck, and let us know how it goes ~ ron

Yep I was looking at all the golabky/holubky posts here, and in some cookbooks. I guess the rice is supposed to be cooked before putting in with the meat? Some recipes dont specify, some say add it raw, a couple say cooked. Did your rice cook through? I'm thinking the rice should be cooked and cooled first...

Okay, that makes sense now. I know we have about two or three kinds of rice in the hacienda but definitely no minute rice. I'll just reduce the amounts and put it in the recipe uncooked.