Stuffed Cabbage

by | Dec 9, 2013 | Meat dishes

Stuffed cabbage is one of the most typical winter dishes in Hungary. It spread in Hungary in the 18th century due to Turkish influence. It’s prepared in large quantities as you can eat it for several days and it’s always better the next day, or the day after that. Traditional Christmas dish, but it’s also cooked on pig-killing days. There are countless variations of this dish, so many houses so many recipes.

Stuffed-cabbage
Stuffed cabbage – photo: zserbo.com

Ingredients:

  • 20 cabbage leaves (1 head of approx. 1,5 kg ~ 3 1/3 lbs)
  • 500 g (~1 lb) minced pork
  • 100 g (~3 1/2 oz) rice, washed and uncooked
  • 4 eggs
  • 1/2 tsp. pepper
  • 1/2 tbsp. salt
  • 3 tsp. sweet paprika
  • 1 tbsp. flour
  • 1 kg (~2 1/4 lbs) sauerkraut

Take a cabbage (weight approx. 1,5 kg), remove the outer leaves and core out the head.

Cored-cabbage
photo: zserbo.com

Place the head in a pot of boiling water and wait until you can easily peel the leaves with a wooden spoon one by one. Take them out from the water. Cut off the hard rib from the base of each cabbage leaf. Set them aside.

While the leaves cooling, prepare the stuffing. Put minced pork in a bowl, add the rice, eggs, flour and spices and mix them up.

Divide the mixture into 20 portions and stuff each cabbage leaf. Place the filling in an oval shape near the rib edge of each leaf, fold the left side in, roll up toward the outer edge and finally tuck the edge in.

If the sauerkraut is too sour or salty, wash it prior to use (but it’s not necessarily important).

Put half of the sauerkraut in a large pot, place the cabbage rolls, seam sides down, on the top of it, then cover them with the remaining sauerkraut.

Pour water to cover the rolls. Simmer it for 2-2,5 hours at a low heat. Serve the rolls with sour cream.

Cabbage-rolls
photo: zserbo.com

Become a patron and support my work

If you're enjoying this collection of Hungarian recipes, please, consider making a one-time payment.

0 Comments

Hungarian cottage cheese

This is what Hungarian túró looks like

You often ask me what kind of cottage cheese (or curd cheese or farmer's cheese - call it what you want) I use in the recipes. In Hungary the store-bought cottage cheese is dry and crumbly as you can see in the picture. So if a recipe calls for túró, I mean this type. If you can't obtain túró, you can try to make your own from whole milk. Click on the link below.

Metric system vs cup

In Hungary metric units are in use, all the recipes on this website are based on this system, so a kitchen scale is necessary. Since I’m not familiar with cup as a measurement unit, I convert grams to cups by using an online converter. The values in brackets, therefore, are only approximate volumes, so, please, double-check them before you start cooking.

Pin It on Pinterest