Stuffing Cabbage

Stuffed cabbage is something I crave maybe once or twice a year.

I know. It is labor intensive. I tried making it one other time, maybe 10 years ago, neglecting to realize cabbage’s sour nature. This time, I made sure to add sugar AND cranberry sauce.

Armed with:
- homemade tomato sauce (See yesterdays post)
-1 pound of ground chicken (I make the butcher grind from actual chicken breast)
-two cans whole berry cranberry sauce
-1 can of diced tomatoes (one of the secret ingredients I use in many recipes)
-3/4 cup brown sugar
-1/2 cup panko (using panko instead of bread crumbs or rice to keep the dish relatively low carb)
-3 egg whites (equals one egg without the 15 grams of fat)

I started on my stuffed cabbage journey.

The Assembly Process

Steam about 8-10 cabbage leaves.

Combine ground chicken, panko and egg whites. Because I know that this type of ground chicken sometimes doesn’t hold together, I also add a bit of tomato sauce.

When the cabbage looks like it is wilting, drain it. Begin adding the ground chicken. The recipe says to use about a teaspoon. Then, I roll it like a burrito. I’m never very good at rolling burritos or wraps, and food service folks make it look so easy!

Combine the tomato sauce (about 28 ounces), two cans of cranberry sauce, 1 can of diced tomatoes and brown sugar in my biggest pot. I turn my burner to low.

Waiting to Boil

My creations are stacked on each other in the pot. There isn’t enough liquid to cover them all. I run out to get more diced tomatoes and I am debating whether buying spaghetti sauce is a better option. I can’t stand the thought of ruining my homemade sauce with all those preservatives. I find the last can of diced tomatoes at Rite Aid, return home, add it to the pot and turn the timer on for an hour.

At this point in the process, I always feel like whatever I’m doing is going to come out like crap but I keep forging ahead. That’s mostly because I really have nothing else to do. And my apartment already smells like cabbage, so I might as well continue.

One hour goes by, and I taste the sauce and debate transferring it to a pan and placing it in the oven for an hour. I decide not to do this (for no particular reason, just instinctive) and let the simmering continue for another hour. I realized that everything in the pot was still cold, so I turned my burner up to “two”—I guess that constitutes a low flame on my oven. I started this at about 3 pm, and by 6 pm I tried a piece. It had to be some of the best stuffed cabbage ever and I hope to make it for the High Holidays in a couple of weeks.