Stuffed cabbage is a wonderful dish from childhood. This dish can be safely served to the table instead of the usual cutlets and chops. Stuffed cabbage is a combination of both the main dish (its filling, usually meat, takes on this role) and a light vegetable, namely cabbage, side dish. Many face the problem: how to wrap stuffed cabbage. We will consider several ways to prepare this delicious dish, as well as reveal the secrets of facilitating the process.
Traditional filling
Before you figure out how to wrap stuffed cabbage, you need to think about what products we will use as its filling. Usually, minced meat, whether chicken, pork or beef, is added to the cabbage leaves. Sometimes boiled rice, carrots, onions, as well as various seasonings, for example, black pepper, basil, coriander or garlic, are added to the minced meat filling.
Original content
Currently, there are many variations of stuffing stuffed cabbage. Resourceful housewives use champignons chopped with egg and onion in combination with corn and seasoned with ketchup in the preparation of the filling. Buckwheat, kohlrabi, zucchini are also added to the filling. Tasty stuffed cabbage stuffed with vegetables alone, for example, carrots seasoned with garlic and cloves, will be delicious. Some even use noodles as filling for stuffed cabbage! Also, a whole piece of meat, rolled up in a tube and stuffed with cheese, walnuts and other goodies, is added to the cabbage leaf. When preparing cabbage rolls, you can safely experiment, wrap any products that you like in a cabbage leaf.
Choose cabbage
Now that we have decided which ingredients we will use as a filling, before returning to the question of how to wrap stuffed cabbage, we need to correctly select the desired head of cabbage. To prepare this dish, it is better to use the leaves of young cabbage, because they are less dense, which means they will be more juicy and tender. Remember: the fresher and younger the head of cabbage, the softer the cabbage roll will turn out. In order to use the cabbage leaves during cooking, it is necessary to cut them with a sharp knife from the stalk and lightly boil in salted boiling water. If it’s difficult to find a young head of cabbage, you can use more dense and old vegetables. But we warn: the leaves of such cabbage must be carefully processed before cooking. Firstly, in this case it is better to pay attention to small heads of cabbage. Secondly, to leave in boiling water over low heat you need not separate cabbage leaves, but the whole vegetable, and it should be kept there for about 10 minutes. Only after this should you cut off the leaves from the head and remove coarse fibers or thick veins. Some housewives, in order to achieve greater softness from the cabbage leaves, treat them with a kitchen hammer.
How to wrap cabbage rolls: photo
We will analyze in stages how to wrap the selected filling in the prepared cabbage leaf so that the dish does not fall apart when stewed. This is how our mothers and grandmothers cook cabbage rolls. First you need to put a cabbage leaf on a clean surface. Now you need to put a little filling on it. In our case, it is minced meat with herbs. It is better to place the filling not in the center, but slightly closer to the base of the leaflet.
Now let's see how to properly wrap cabbage rolls in cabbage. We begin to do this from the bottom. Tuck it and put on the filling.
Now we connect the sides together so that the meat does not leave the limits of the cabbage leaf during further processing.
And now back to the base again. Carefully continue to wrap the cabbage roll until we reach the top of the leaf.
To spread the resulting pie in the dishes you need, pressing the naughty edge of the cabbage leaf to the pan.
Some housewives, in order to play it safe and to avoid the possible creep of the darling, tie it with an ordinary thread. After extinguishing, the latch is removed, and the dish can be safely tasted.
How to wrap cabbage rolls? The photo will show this more clearly. There is nothing complicated about it. The result is a neat convolution.
We make cones
We will learn not only how to wrap cabbage rolls with an envelope, but also consider the Bulgarian method of preparing this delicious dish. So that from a cabbage leaf stuffed with excellent filler, you get a cone, you first need to cut it in half. In this case, it is desirable to remove the hard part. It turns out small pieces of cabbage. We will use them in the preparation of cabbage rolls. A little filling should be laid out on a leaf closer to the base. And now we begin to twist our cabbage roll, like a paper sheet, that is, take the edge nearest to us and make a cone. Now it remains to wrap the edges of the cabbage inward, to the filling. This is how Bulgarian cabbage rolls are prepared.
Cabbage rolls
If you want to get miniature narrow cabbage rolls, then this recipe is created specifically for you. Cabbage rolls, as a rule, are prepared using meat filling with the obligatory addition of rice, as well as sesame seeds, traditional products and Japanese cuisine sauces. How to wrap stuffed cabbage so that you get a roll? First you need to form the filling. It is better to roll it into a thin sausage and season with spices on top. Now the resulting mass should be laid out on a cabbage leaf in the manner shown in the photo.
A feature of this cooking method is that the cabbage roll is not twisted from the base to the curly part, but from one side to the other.
It turns out a long and thin stuffed cabbage. You can slightly tuck the sticking edges of the cabbage inward.
Completion
We examined several ways to wrap cabbage rolls. A photo of the finished dish is also attached. What to do next? How to cook cabbage rolls to the end? Before you use the resulting envelopes, cones or rolls, you need to put them out. To do this, you need a deep pan. It is better to completely close its bottom with chopped vegetables, such as carrots, onions, bell peppers, and various greens. You can also add sour cream and butter to make the dish more soft. Now you should put our cabbage rolls on a vegetable pillow, add a little water. Extinguish them over low heat. Until the cabbage rolls are ready, wait about an hour. Extinguishing time depends on the products you used as the filling.
So, if raw rice was added to the minced meat, then leave the cabbage rolls on the fire for an hour and a half. If the filling is light, for example, vegetable, then 25 minutes is enough. Enjoy your meal!