Ingredients:
1 1/2 lbs ground beef
1 1/2 lbs ground pork
1 cabbage, outer leaves discarded ( approx 2 lbs)
3 tablespoons olive oil
3/4 cup short-grain rice
1 1/2 cups minced onions
1 cup carrots, grated
1/2 cup minced parsley
1/2 cup minced celery
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 garlic cloves, minced very fine
2 tablespoons minced spearmint ( or 1 tblsp dried, rubbed)
2 beef bouillon cubes
1/2 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
salt and pepper
2 eggs
2 tablespoons cornflour
2 lemons, juice of
Directions:
Combine the ground meats with the 3 tblsps olive oil, rice, onion, parlsey, celery, carrot, tomato paste, garlic and spearmint. Season with salt and pepper. Knead well to combine everything.
Place cabbage in a large pot of boiling water and cover pot.
When the outer leaves are blanched and softened, remove leaf by leaf, keeping the leaves whole, and place flat on a towel on work surface.
Continue in this way, removing leaves as they become blanched and soft.
Take some leaves that have not removed in one piece (the worse looking ones, or chop up some cabbage) and put in the bottom of a large pot.
Take a cabbage leaf and place 2 tblsps of meat filling in the center.
Fold both sides in and start rolling up, away from you, to make a cylinder, like an egg-roll or cigar. Do this rather loosely to allow for expansion of the meat and rice as it cooks. Lay these neatly in your pot, packing them in next to one another so they hold their shape.
Continue rolling cabbage leaves until all your filling has been used up and/or you run out of leaves.
Put more torn cabbage leaves or chopped up cabbage over the cabbage rolls.
Pour over olive oil, add stock cubes and add enough hot water to just cover the cabbage rolls by 1/2 “.
Weight the cabbage rolls with a plate and bring to the boil (the plate keeps the rolls from moving around too much as they cook, so that they don’t unroll).
Cook for just over an hour.
Remove from heat.
Carefully remove cabbage rolls to serving dish and make your sauce using the liquid remaining in pot.
Beat the eggs with the corn flour and lemon juice.
Very carefully and very slowly and whisking all the time, start to dribble the hot stock into the egg mixture. Keep doing this until you’ve added nearly all the stock. This tempers your eggs so that your sauce won’t curdle.
Pour the sauce back into the pot, and cook until the sauce just starts to simmer.
Remove from heat and serve with the cabbage rolls coated generously with this sauce.
Another recipe that goes so well eaten with nibbles of feta cheese and crusty bread (as all Greek recipes seem to).
Servings: 8-10
Time preparation: 70 min.
Time total: 140 min.