German Cabbage Rolls Recipe - Food.com (2024)

FAQs

Why is my cabbage tough on my cabbage rolls? ›

If your cooked cabbage is tough, it's likely because the cabbage is not cooked through yet. Continue to cook the rolls until they're tender. It's also important to make sure you let the rolls rest after they're finished baking.

If you want to make stuffed cabbage leaves, you don't have to cook the leaves to make them pliable. It's a lot easier just to freeze the cabbage—an added benefit is it doesn't stink up your house.

There are few foods that have traveled the world the way cabbage rolls have. Sarmale, as they are called in Romania, are today considered an incredibly delicious dish with Romanian-specific ingredients. But, behind the tasty recipe, there's a rich history of hundreds of years that has built its savor and prestige.

Baking soda does help green vegetables retain color, but it causes undesirable color changes in red cabbage—it turned blue. The science can be distilled to this: Adding baking soda to cooking water makes it slightly alkaline, which stabilizes the green color of chlorophyll.

Crisp it up: Shredded cabbage stays perky if it's soaked in cold water. This also helps cut the pungent edge. Drain well before combining with other ingredients.

Any variety of green cabbage will do for this recipe, but we went with savoy cabbage because the leaves are a bit looser and easier to work with. The leaves are also just the right shape and size for this application.

Yes, you can make cabbage rolls ahead of time. You can roll cabbage rolls, assemble in a single layer in a baking dish, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 48 hours. Or just use the Dutch oven if you have enough space in your refrigerator. Then bake with tomato sauce mixture as per recipe.

After all the work of making homemade stuffed cabbage rolls, I find it hard to pour tomato soup on top. For one pound of meat, I mix an 8oz. can of tomato sauce, 1 Tablespoon brown sugar, 1 Tablespoon lemon juice and 1 teaspoon worcestershire sauce. I mix well and pour over cabbage rolls.

China produces nearly half of the world's cabbage while Russia consumes the most per person. The average Russian eats about 44 pounds of cabbage a year. That compares to the 8.6 pounds eaten by Americans. Raw cabbage is rich in vitamin C.

Stuffed cabbage rolls are a popular Polish dish. Pork and beef mixed with rice or barley are nestled in a cabbage leaf and cooked in the oven or on the stove until tender. The cabbage rolls are called gołąbki in Polish, holubky by Czechs and Slovaks, or sarma / сарма by Serbs, Croatians and Bulgarians.

Which cabbage is the tastiest? ›

Many people prefer savoy cabbage to regular cabbage because of its milder flavour and tender leaves. This is the perfect cabbage for using raw and thinly sliced in salads, stir-fries, or braised with butter. Savoy cabbage works nicely as a fresh and crunchy wrap – you can substitute it for rice paper or tortillas.

Freezing is a far safer method than blanching. You won't be placing a head of cabbage in a boiling pot of water and removing it every minute or two, which will result in hot water splashes. It also means you can do the entire leaf removal at one time and not in stages.

So at first, eating the outer leaves didn't sound too appetizing. But that's the thing about growing your own food; you put so much effort into your plants so it just kills you to let anything go to waste. So I decided to make cabbage rolls with the outer leaves. My goodness they were fabulous.

Method #1: Cut the core out before halving the cabbage. This is how to core cabbage for cabbage rolls, because the whole leave is used for rolling. If the cabbage is halved before coring, then the whole leaf won't be there for stuffing.

When you salt any vegetable that has high water content, the salt draws out some of the water by simple osmosis. You don't want to salt lettuce in advance — it will wilt — but salting works wonders with cabbage. The shredded leaves become more tender, and their flavor grows more concentrated.

You're not cooking the right kind of cabbage

If you do want to cook it, add a touch of acid like lemon juice or vinegar to lessen the effect. The Savoy cabbage can be used as a substitute for green cabbage, just keep in mind that its leaves are a bit more tender than that of other cabbages.