After my last post, I didn’t believe that I’d be making stuffed cabbage this Sukkos which made me maudlin. After all women in my family, probably in lots of families have been stuffing them for years, even centuries, I’m sure for a perfectly good reason, though no one seems to remember what that reason is.

Ididn’t want to break the long cabbage chain that may have started at Sinai., though probably not. From what the Chumash tells us the desert diet consisted of manna and quail.

But then my friend Shoshana showed up with this

And I got to work.

I”m not going to kid you Stuffing cabbage is a job. but thank G-d I had a good helper.

For posterity’s sake, here is the recipe.

1 savoy cabbage (no stuffed cabbages can’t be red!)

Five small onions

I can sauerkraut

1 lb (or 500 grams) chopped meat. I mixed turkey and beef

Tomato juice

Brown Sugar

Black pepper

1 fresh lemon

2 eggs

1/2 cup white rice

Stuffing

Saute one small onion. Add the rice to the saute

Combine chopped meat with 1/4 cup tomato juice, two eggs and salt and pepper to taste.

Add the fried onion and rice to the meat mixture.

This will be your stuffing.

Cabbage

In a large pot steam the cabbage until it’s soft enough pry off the leaves. Boil two inches (about 4 cups) of water on the bottom of a large pot (dutch oven) and inserted your cabbage. It can take 10-15 minutes for the cabbage to soften enough that the leaves can be pried loose.

Remove the cabbage from steaming water. Let it cook a bit and then delicately separate the leaves one at a time. You’ll probably be able to get two or three lose at one time and then you’ll return the cabbage to the steaming water to soften some more. This takes patience.

The leaves must be pliable enough to fold and roll.

The art of cabbage stuffing

Once you can separate a few outer leaves from the cabbage (small tears don’t matter but try to get them intact) take a paring knife and thin the vein at the center of the cabbage (a big fat vein will make rolling impossible) without tearing the cabbage.

Place a tablespoon of filling at the center of your leaf. (if your leaves are small use less filling. ). Then roll up the cabbage and press it on both sides to make sure the filling is secure inside. If there’s a small rip on the side, the cabbage will still survive but try to avoid major leaks.

Cooking

Line the bottom of a large pot or Dutch oven with quartered onions and sauer kaut. (If you have a few beef bones and a piece of flanken, you add them but that will add calories)

Layer the cabbages on top of the sauerkraut and onions.

Continue layering until you are done.

Pour a cup of tomato juice, a half cup of brown sugar, the juice of a lemon and between 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoons of black pepper (depending how peppery you like it) . For Simchas Torah my mother says that it’s customary to add a handful of raisins though she doesn’t know why.

Cook in a covered pot on low flame for three hours shaking the pot occassionally to distribute the juices. And then voila-you have it-stuffed cabbage.

BTW it freezes very well

Hag Sameach. Enjoy