One Pot Wednesday: Andrea's Stuffed Cabbage

Andrea's Stuffed Cabbage

Over the festive period, everyone gets busy with cooking and baking at home and I can guarantee you if you would get the chance to inspect any of my fellow Hungarian’s fridge (well I would love to have a nosy around anyway) they would have a massive pot of stuffed cabbage proudly taking the main position on the shelf between Christmas and New year’s eve.
One of our family favourite foods (including the adopted German relatives) would be the stuffed cabbage.



40dg. Pork mince (we always try to buy good quality meat and minced it ourselves)
1 pack of Smoked bacon (this is my thing, I think it gives the filing a more interesting flavour)
30 dg. Smoked ribs (you need to slice them beside each bone that you can divide them when cooking)
1 normal sized white cabbage
60 dg. Sauerkraut
1 normal sized onion
10 dg. rice
2 cloves of Garlic
Salt and ground black pepper
1 spoon of tomato puree
1 teaspoon of Paprika powder
3 tablespoons of cooking oil
3 dg. Flour
Some Sour cream – to serve

*dg is dekagram- 10 grams.

Start by getting the cabbage and cutting out the hard bit in the middle.
Then cook it or steam it approx. 10 min. until the cabbage softens up a little bit. (This makes it easier for later when you will have to wrap the filing inside it, but please don’t overcook it!).

While the cabbage is cooking, heat one spoonful of olive oil and fry the dry rice until it turns nice golden-brown, then pour some water over it; just enough to half cook the rice.
When the water begins to boil add some salt and b. pepper to it. Take the rice off when it is HALF cooked (make sure no excess water left on it).

When the cabbage and rice is finished put them aside to cool them down a little bit- since no one likes burnt fingers!
Get the pork, bacon, half of the onion and the garlic and mince them together.
Put them in a bowl with the cooled and half cooked rice add some more salt and b. pepper and the tomato puree and mix them well together.

Get the cabbage and carefully start to peel each leaf off- we always thin off the thick bottom of the leaf with a knife, again it will make it easier to roll up the leaves.

Get one of the leaves in the palm of your hand and fill it with some of the mixture until you run out of leaves. If there is some left-over from the meaty mix, roll them up into little balls.
Cut up the small unusable leaves from the cabbage and mix them with the Sauerkraut then half them. Put the first half to the bottom of the pot with half of the smoked ribs evenly spread around. Put all the stuffed cabbage leaves neatly over it and spread the other half of the Sauerkraut and smoked ribs over the top of the stuffed cabbage.
Fill the pot with water until it covers the food, put a lid on it and let it slowly cook for about 2 hours.

After the cabbage has been cooked for 2 hours get 2 spoonful of cooking oil and heat it up in a separate dish. Slice the other half of the onion to small fine pieces and add it to the oil then add the flour and fry them until they have a nice colour. Whilst constantly stirring add the paprika powder to the fried onion and flour and very quickly add a little bit of the juice from the cabbage, don’t let it get lumpy (you do this to thicken up the liquid around the cabbage). Put this floury mixture straight into the pot and let it cook for another 10 minutes.

And then you are ready to eat, you can serve and eat everything from the pot. Bon appetite!!!

Love,

Andrea

xxx

Thankyou Andrea, for this great post! I know my Papa would love it... If anyone else has any recipes for One Pot Wednesday, Slow cook Sunday or Winter Warmers, then please do get in touch, I love contributor posts!
loulovesfood@mail.com

One Pot Wednesday: Octopus

Very exciting new feature for Lou Loves Food!
One cold winter Wednesday in East London a few weeks back, I cooked a warming one pot dish. It was a success, and decided that the format should be repeated again the next week. Before long a seed of genius was planted within one bright little mind (Ican't claim it was mine, I don't remember who first noticed the alliterative potential of 'one pot' and 'wednesday') and from that seed One Pot Wednesday was born.
As we work our way through a wide range of dishes that can be created with minimum complexity- minimum washing up- I will upload them for you to try. The first to make its debut is Octopus Stew...

Octopus Stew

This is a lovely dish, though a little nerve wracking the first time you give it a go, as octopus is notoriously temperamental. Don't be put off by assuming it is either tough or chewy, this needn't be the case and I'll give you comprehensive instructions to avoiding it. It's so worth doing if you get it right- and I'm confident you will. The little tightly curled pink tentacles that nestle amongst the translucent stock and onion are so delicate and beautiful, especially pitted against the greens of the parsley and celery. I find it impossible to work with octopus without going into a rapture over their aesthetic.

1 large octopus, cleaned and frozen
1 bulb of Fennel
4 stalks of celery
2 white onions
1 jug fish stock
2 cups white wine
2 bulbs garlic
Large handful parsley
Plenty of cracked black pepper

Start by warming a large pan with a generous amount of olive and preparing your octopus if it hasn't already been done. It's important to freeze your octopus as it tenderizes it, and prevents you having to give it a good beating with a rolling pin before cooking.
Place the octopus (whole and unchopped) into the pan and add the garlic. Leave for a couple of minutes for the octopus to release its natural juices into the oil and then add a cup of white wine and the chopped onion.
Add the fish stock (I like to use the jelly stock) and bring to the boil, reducing immediately to a simmer. Whilst this simmers, chop the celery and fennel into slices. Add to the pan with the chopped parsley, reserving a little.

Now leave! With octopus and squid there is a cardinal rule you must abide by- never cook between 4 and 45 minutes! For a soft and tender squid (a chewy, rubbery texture is the main reason most people dislike this maligned creature. It is not in fact an accurate description and it is easily avoided, as long as you cook it correctly.) you should either fry it gently for less than four minutes, or stew it for over forty five. Anything on either side or between this tricky times can be disastrous.

After about forty minutes, remove your octopus with a slatted spoon. Slice up thickly and return to the pan, checking the texture. You should be able to slide a knife into it to gage its tenderness, but I like to taste test it! It may need an extra five or ten minutes- don't be afraid of going with your instinct. After about 55 minutes, my octopus went from being ever so slightly al dente to perfectly smooth and soft.

When its ready, add another cup of white wine and plenty of cracked pepper. Stir, and remove from the heat. The fish stock should make the stew nice and salty, but if you do like to season you're dishes, don;t do it till this point- adding salt any earlier to seafood will dry it out and toughen it up- don't do it!

Dish the stew into bowls and top with extra pepper (you can never have too much pepper in my book- the same applies to onion) and a second handful of parsley.

xxx