gołąbki
recipe for juicy stuffed cabbage rolls filled with ground pork, rice and vegetables - prepared during my last visit to my family home in Poland
Gołąbki recipe
I served half a portion of gołąbki in tomato sauce and the other half with veggie broth. Both are wonderful but if you only want to prepare one type of sauce, double the recipe!
Serve: 15 rolls
Ingredients:
Gołąbki:
700g pork mince
15 savoy cabbage leaves
2 white onions
3 garlic cloves
1 carrot
half a leek
a bunch of dill
360g short-grain rice + 360g water
150g light soy sauce
sour cream for serving
10 turns of a black pepper mill
sea salt
extra virgin olive oil
Vegetable broth:
half a red pepper
1 white onion
half a leek
1 carrot
a bunch of parsley
15 cherry tomatoes
700g water
vegetable oil
sea salt
black pepper
20g cornstarch + 40g water
Tomato sauce:
250g tomato passata
half white onion
1 garlic clove
50g unsalted butter
sea salt
agave syrup
Method:
Vegetable broth:
Heat a medium pot with a splash of vegetable oil and char onion halves (flat side down) for around 4 minutes over high heat. Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer the broth for 1 hour on low heat. Season with salt and black pepper.
Prepare a slurry by mixing cornstarch with water in a small bowl and whisk until the liquid has no lumps. Once the broth is done, add the slurry to it while stirring. To activate cornstarch and thicken the broth slightly, bring the soup to a simmer - it should take around 3 minutes.
Tomato sauce:
Brunoise half onion and mince garlic. Melt butter over low to medium heat, and sauté allium until soft. Add passata, and simmer the sauce for around 20 minutes to intensify the flavour. Stir often. Season with salt, black pepper, and a swirl of agave syrup.
While the broth and tomato sauce are cooking bring a large pot with water to a boil and add a generous amount of salt (the boiled water is going to be used for blanching cabbage leaves).
Rice:
Rice acts as a binding agent in this recipe so I recommend using short-grain rice such as sushi rice as it has a high starch content and therefore the filling will hold together.
Read the key points and follow the instructions on how to cook rice here.
Filling:
Finely chop onion, leek and dill stems (leave the fronds for presentation), mince garlic, and grate the carrot. Sauté onion with garlic until translucent. In a medium bowl combine meat, prepped vegetables, cooked rice, and season with soy sauce, salt, and black pepper.
Blanching and rolling cabbage leaves:
Tear off the outer darker leaves as they tend to be tough.
Using a sharp knife, make incisions around the cabbage core and snap off the leaves with your hand. You might need to repeat this process a couple of times depending on how deep you cut. If you find it too hard to snap off a leaf, grab a spoon to lift the stem.
Cook leaves in batches - otherwise, the pan gets overcrowded and the leaves might not soften. Start with the darker pieces as they tend to be harder. Put them into the boiling water and cook for around 4 minutes until tender but not mushy. Blanch the rest of the leaves for around 3 minutes. Cooking makes the leaves more pliable to roll and less likely to tear.
Once the leaves are cooked, dry them on a paper towel and then cut off the thicker stem end (as shown in the GIF above).
Divide the filling into 15 portions.
Lay a cabbage leaf on a clean surface with the cut facing you. Grab a tennis ball-sized filling and shape up an oblong piece. Place the filling on the leaf around 4cm from the top edge. Fold the top end of the cabbage leaf, roll, and tuck in the sides and finish rolling tightly to the end.
Cooking and serving:
Arrange the gołąbki in the sauce seam side down. Simmer both for 1,5 hours with a lid on over low heat, making sure they don’t burn by manoeuvering occasionally. Keep an eye on the gołąbki, if you chose the tomato sauce as it might reduce too much - if there’s not enough sauce, add some water. After 1,5 hours, check if the cabbage is tender. If it’s still not ready, cook it a bit longer.
Serve gołąbki with a dollop of sour cream topped with fresh dill fronds and ground black pepper.
