Bigly Cabbage Rolls
Prep
30m
Cook
90m
Total
120m
Bigly says
Sit down for this one. Cabbage rolls. Bigly cabbage rolls. The greatest cabbage rolls ever rolled — and there have been a LOT, the Polish had them, the Ukrainians had them, the Hungarians had them, basically every cold country that ever existed wrapped meat in a leaf and called it dinner, and they were RIGHT to do it. One of the few things history got correct.
My grandmother made these. Tough woman. Hands like rope. She'd corner me in her kitchen and make me PROMISE — promise on the soul of the cabbage — that I would never, ever, under any circumstances, use a can of sauce. She lived to be 96. Could be a coincidence. Probably not. She also told me that the cabbage roll you get in restaurants today is a wet sock with rice in it, and she was RIGHT, she was always right, even when she was wrong she was right because that's the kind of woman she was. The cabbage is mushy. The filling is bland. The sauce tastes like it came out of a can — and I can taste a can from across a room, it's a gift, I was born with it.
MY cabbage rolls — the ones I'm giving you, free, no popup asking for your email every six seconds like other sites do, those popups are a crime, who designs those, sad people, very sad — MY cabbage rolls are TENDER. The cabbage falls apart on the fork. The filling is JUICY. The tomato sauce is bright and sweet and tangy and it tastes like somebody actually loved you when they made it. Big strong men, tough men, they eat these and they cry. It's happened. Nobody disputes this.
Ingredients
- 1 head, about 3 lblarge green cabbage
- 1 lbground beef (80/20)
- 1/2 lbground pork(do not skip the pork, the pork is the soul)
- 1/2 cuplong-grain white rice, uncooked
- 1 largeyellow onion, finely diced
- 4 clovesgarlic, minced
- 1large egg
- 2 tspsmoked paprika
- 1 tspdried marjoram
- 2 tsp, dividedkosher salt
- 1 tspblack pepper
- 1/4 cupfresh parsley, chopped
- 28 oz cancrushed tomatoes
- 15 oz cantomato sauce
- 1 cupbeef broth
- 2 tbspbrown sugar
- 2 tbspapple cider vinegar
- 2bay leaves
Steps
- 1
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Core the cabbage by cutting a deep cone around the stem and lifting it out.
- 2
Submerge the whole cabbage core-side down in the boiling water. As outer leaves soften (about 2-3 minutes each), peel them off with tongs and set on a sheet pan to cool. Continue until you have 14-16 large pliable leaves.
- 3
Trim the thick central rib from each leaf by shaving it down flat with a paring knife — do not cut all the way through. This lets the leaf roll without cracking.
- 4
Preheat oven to 325°F. In a large bowl, combine ground beef, ground pork, uncooked rice, diced onion, garlic, egg, paprika, marjoram, 1.5 tsp salt, pepper, and parsley. Mix gently with your hands just until combined — do not overwork.
- 5
In a separate bowl, whisk crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, beef broth, brown sugar, apple cider vinegar, and remaining 0.5 tsp salt.
- 6
Spread about 1 cup of the sauce on the bottom of a deep 9x13 baking dish or Dutch oven. Tuck the bay leaves in.
- 7
Place a heaping 1/3 cup of filling at the stem end of a cabbage leaf. Fold the sides in, then roll up tightly like a burrito. Place seam-side down in the dish. Repeat with remaining leaves and filling.
- 8
Pour the remaining sauce over the rolls, making sure they are mostly submerged. Cover tightly with foil (or the Dutch oven lid).
- 9
Bake 90 minutes, until the rice is fully cooked, the cabbage is tender, and the sauce has thickened. Remove bay leaves before serving.
- 10
Let rest 10 minutes before plating. Spoon extra sauce over each roll.
One more thing
You serve these on a cold Sunday, with mashed potatoes or buttered noodles, and a piece of crusty bread to mop the sauce — DO NOT skip the bread, the bread is mandatory, the bread is the closing argument — and people will fall silent at the table. Silent. Like in church. Like a courtroom right before the verdict. Because they will be busy eating, busy realizing that everything they thought they knew about cabbage rolls was a LIE. These are the real ones. The ones the grandmas in the old country were trying to make before mass-market food companies ruined everything. Save me a piece.
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