It's your nationality, show if off---with FOOD

[hollyquaiscer]

I've been looking through the foods threads for a while now, and am aware of so many different nationalities here. A lot of us make similar things, but in very different ways. I'd love to be able to try someone recipe for the same thing that I already make. So, with Christmas coming, I'm not sure about the rest of you, but in my family, ANY celebration meal is not complete without cabbage rolls.

I'm polish, and this is the recipe I use. It belonged to my babcia. I'll change things up every oncve in awhile, but when it come to any festive occasion, it's always her recipe.

Every week I'd like to change to something different. this week, lets do cabbage rolls, and next week we can try....perhaps perogies or rouladen or something. I love trying new takes on an old favorite, so please help me out with all your fabulous recipes. Make sure you state what nationalitiy the recipe is from.


Cabbage Rolls (Golabki) - POLAND - My babcia was from Krakow and this is the recipe she handed down to me.



Ingredients List

1 large head of cabbage (plain green cabbage)
2 pounds of ground pork
3/4 cup of rice
1 onion, minced
2 tsp pepper
1 tsp salt


Blanch cabbage and remove leaves, brown onion in a small amount of fat, season with salt and pepper. In a bowl mix onion, pork, balance of salt and pepper and rice. Lay leaves flat, fill with some stuffing and roll up. Place in crock and cook with pork fat or tomato.

Thats the basic recipe. As you can see not to many spices or instructions. Later, she added in pen - put sauerkraut between layers.

I've never used pork fat on them, I make a sauce with tomato soup and some tomato juice mixed together. I also add to mine crushed garlic, paprika and mix the pork with ground beef. I put them in my dutch oven and cook them for 2 or more hours in the always double or triple the recipe so that I can store lots in the freezer.

So, if you're willing, please share your recipes for cabbage rolls and where you got the recipe from.

[hollyquaiscer]

no takers?

[harbie]

I'm Danish and the things I loved the most growing up were things that my Farmor (Dad's mom) didn't have "recipes" for

I love is Æbleskiver which are like a cross between a pancake and a timbit. They have the shape of a timbit but taste like a pancake and are supposed to be filled with air bubbles inside so you fill them with jam

[harbie]

[Zonny]

My parents had friends, one of them had Ukrainian parents. She used to make cabbage rolls too, but softened the cabbage by putting them in the freezer.

[Mia001]

i don't know where it came from , but mom also used to make cabbage rolls ....
i must say, she love to try new recipes...and i think she transmitted it to us ( her kids)
so i wonder what meal i could count as a national one in our family.....
or maybe, cipate some also say cipate gaspésien or cipaille (pronounce seapie) but it has nothing to do with seafood


easy to make.....too lazy to give recipe lol

[kazm-l]

Question!!!
I've never made cabbage rolls before - actually i've never eaten them either but your recipe seemed really easy and do-able,lol.
I'm guessing i could just use a selection of veg instead of the pork for a veggie version unless someone has any other ideas.

Anyway, my question is this:
You blanche the entire head of cabbage - not just individual leaves ?
And is it 1 leaf per roll - or do you overlap a couple?

I'm seriously slacking on this cabbage business - the most exciting things i do it with it is a coleslaw, add it to a soup or fry it up(don't do that often but it is a keeper!!)

Oh and i'm British - so that makes my meal Fish and Chips...or maybe cucumber sandwiches,lol...what else is British??!!

[RebeccaRYoung]

I think it's interesting that in Canada people hold onto their previous nationality. I don't really consider myself to be Irish. My family doesn't make anything that's particularly Irish, nor do we know of any family remaining in Ireland. I consider myself to be Canadian. This is such a contrast to the USA, where everyone is American despite where they came from before.

That being said I've never made cabbage rolls or any of the other foods that you mentioned, like perogies. Weirdly enough if I were to give a recipe that I consider to be similar to cabbage rolls it would probably be something like a sushi roll

[Natalka]

Ukrainian Holubtsi - cabbage rolls
------------------
Don't have a recipe from my mom, but these taste very close - tried out from various recipes from Ukrianian cookbooks, and adapted.

1 medium head cabbage, remove core from bottom (yes, it's hard), put in giant pot and boil. Start removing leaves as they become a bit transluscent. I put them on a cookie sheet to cool. Continue until it gets down closer to the middle and the pieces are small (I save them, freeze, and use later in soup or casserole).
Pack loosely in a bag, and freeze at least two days. Remove the night before you are going to make the rolls. When thawed, gently squeeze out excess water.

Filling
------
(We mostly eat cabbage rolls on meatless/fasting days, so it's rare I make them with any meat. However, you can add sauteed bacon or ground meat.)

1 1/2 cups raw short grain rice (it's best because it's stickier, but long grain works too) to three cups water. Cook til not quite done, because you are still going to be baking it.

I make my rice in the nuker (1000w microwave - on high - power 10 - for six minutes, then on power 6 for 12 minutes.)
Alternatively, bake in regular oven.

Sautee two medium onions in 1/4 cup margarine (butter if it's not a fasting day).
Add about 2/3 of this to the cooked rice, and let cool a bit.
Add lots of salt and pepper - and I like to add some dill.

To roll - I've always made small ones, so that means cutting up the big cabbage leaves strategically, but some people like the big honkin' rolls.
Good pics here on how to roll - scroll about halfway down
http://www.the-real-meal.com/2011/10...cipe-rice.html

I use a small roaster - just fits about two layers of rolls (when using cabbage and rice amounts above).
Line roaster with foil so it goes all the way up the sides.
I put in my rolls diagonally, with each layer going the opposite way (easier to remove them when cooked).

Overtop of the rolls, I've tried many different things.
Usually I would use a can of tomato soup mixed with a can of water. Make sure there is enough sauce to come to almost the top of the rolls.
Often I use tomato juice at first, then if I have to add liquid, then I add the tomato soup and water.
Then put overtop the sauteed onions and margarine that is left, or dot with margarine pieces.

If you don't want them tomato-y - just add water with some margarine on top.
(The babas - Ukrainian grandmothers - make their taste REALLY good by pouring lard over them - OY! The last time I made holubtsi with bacon, I added the bacon grease over the rolls - so yummy, but so very bad....)

Bake at 350 degrees F for about two hours - (start testing whether the cabbage is soft enough).

Serve with additional sauteed onions, and/or plain tomato canned soup.

[Natalka]

Pyrohy (Peh - Roh - Heh -The "R" in "Roh" is hard) - perogies!
-----------------

Again, a recipe which took a while to find/perfect - my mom would just say "add enough flour to make a soft dough..."

Pyrohy dough - makes five dozen small

3/4 cup warm water
2 Tbsp oil
1 beaten egg
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt

Mix and knead together til dough is smooth. Cover and let stand for one hour before rolling.
Roll rather thin, cut into small circles (I use a sherry crystal glass).

Fillings
-----

Most commonly, a potato and cheese filling is used.
To match the above amount of dough, I make about 3/4 of dutch oven of potatoes - boil til fork-tender, then mash together with one cup grated cheddar cheese (Cheez Whiz is also quite tasty!), and a bit of diced onions sauteed in margarine. Add salt and pepper.

- Now, it's all in the 'pinching'!!!

Hold a round of dough (softest/sticky side up) in the palm of your hand, and place about a tablespoon of potato mixture in the centre. Fold the dough over, and pinch the edges of the dough together, you may have to go around the crescent more than once. You must have them sealed well.

Good pics here
http://food.andrewzajac.ca/taxonomy/term/36

We usually eat them with sauteed onions, but they are also great with a mushroom sauce, or shkvarky (fried pieces of bacon).

[lecale]

.

[hollyquaiscer]

Question!!!
I've never made cabbage rolls before - actually i've never eaten them either but your recipe seemed really easy and do-able,lol.
I'm guessing i could just use a selection of veg instead of the pork for a veggie version unless someone has any other ideas.

Anyway, my question is this:
You blanche the entire head of cabbage - not just individual leaves ?
And is it 1 leaf per roll - or do you overlap a couple?

I'm seriously slacking on this cabbage business - the most exciting things i do it with it is a coleslaw, add it to a soup or fry it up(don't do that often but it is a keeper!!)

Oh and i'm British - so that makes my meal Fish and Chips...or maybe cucumber sandwiches,lol...what else is British??!!

There are a lot of different ways to do the cabbage. I blanch the entire head. What I do is cut out the core of the cabbage (or as much of it as i can get from the stem) and plunge it into boiling salted water, the I will remove a few leaves, put it back in and let it soften some more. While I'm doing this, I will prepare my mixture. I use one leaf per roll, so when purchaseing my cabbage I always look for the largest head I can find.

You can also freeze the cabbage, then thaw it (the leaves become limp) but I find doing this gives the cabbage a different kind of taste that I don't care for. I prefer the tried and true tradition of boiling it. It is actually faster in time if you take into consideration the time it takes to freeze and thaw a cabbage. But either way, cabbage rolls are soooo good!


I thing doing a vergan roll would be wonderful. I would use veggies that cook at relatively the same length of time and mix it with the rice.

[hollyquaiscer]

Other than going all-rice, consider TVP (texturized vegetable protein). This is a soy based product (I mean no kidding, the ingredient list is generally just soy, caramel colour (which is burnt sugar))

I have fed it in recipes to my euro parents and they could not tell the difference between meat and TVP once it has been cooked in all the other ingredients. Very convincing texture, no unpleasant aftertaste.

It comes in a bag and looks like dog kibble...to use it you just soak it and squeeze out the excess water, maybe add a bit of bouillon power of some sort to salt it and give it flavour and you can go ahead an use it like cooked mince/burger.

The only big difference between mince and TVP is TVP is 0% fat and lean burger is about 17% fat. So you want to add some extra fatou with the TVP, but you will still come out lower fat overall vs. using mince.

The only thing about fat is that fat adds flavour. NO matter what kind. I won't (well won'ts a strong word, lets just say I try not to) use bacon fat, but sometimes you just have to oin a recipe. I try and eat as healthy as possible, but sometimes I need a comfort food meal.

[hollyquaiscer]

Mmmmm, perogies, I so love them too. They don't taste as good when you make them with gluten free dough, but still, it's a perogie. I use different fillings. My dh's favorite is a desert perogie I make with cottage cheese, raisins and cinnamon. I also make a potato and cheddar filling, a bacon and sauerkraut, a ground beef and onion, and a few others.

When I make perogies, I try and make several different fillers, then I freeze them and we're good for 3 or 4 months of quick meals. I like to serve them with melted butter and sauted onions, sourcream, pico de gallo, dill butter and garlic butter (not all at once but I like to have 2 or 3 different toppings to choose from)

[hollyquaiscer]

Here is my recipe for perogies - Polish -


This is my dough recipe:

3 cups of flour 3/4 cup of boiling water
1/4 cup of cold water
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of oil
mix the flour, salt and boiling water together, then cover the bowl and let it rest for 5 minute. Add the cold water and mash together, then cover and let sit for an additional 15 minutes. Add the oil and kneed. It is now ready to use.

I've tried tons of different dough recipes, and I always come back to my bacia's recipe. The dough I think, is the most important thing, if your dough is not good, you won't get a nice tender perogie, try several and use the one you like. While I'm doing my dough, I's also preparing my fillings so it doesn't really take any more time.

Here are a few of my filling recipes:

2 pounds of ground meat (beef, chicken,pork,turkey)
3 carrots
1 parsley
1 leek
half of a celery stick
1 onion
parsley leaves
1 egg
salt & pepper

Fry the ground beef, then add the veggies (cut the vegies into small matchstick pieces then cut them in half) stir until the veggies become limp. Strain to remove all grease (if there is any) Put mixture in a bowl and add the sale and pepper to taste, along with the egg (once the mixture has cooled) Mix it all together and you're ready to fill the dough.

Potato filling

4 cups of mashed potatoes
3 cups of cheese (I use sharp cheddar but you can use any kind you like here)
5 tbls butter
2 onions that have been diced sauted
salt and pepper to taste

Mix everything together in a bowl, let stand for about 15 minutes to meld the flavours, then you're ready to start filling the dough.

Cottage cheese and raisin

4 cups of dry cottage cheese
2 cups raisins
1 tble cinnamon
1/2 tsp of nutmeg
a pinch of salt

Mix everything together in a bowl and let it sit for about 15 minutes. Stuff the dough and enjoy!