Good stuff: Whole stuffed cabbage has ‘wow’ factor, heartiness to ward off chill

Is it just me, or is there a lot going on right now? “My brain is broken,” I said to a friend yesterday. I’m finding it hard to sit still, to concentrate, to read, to write. I can’t even muster the focus necessary to do complex algebraic calculations.

Oh, ho, ho — just kidding! I haven’t done a smidgen of algebra since halfway through high school. Of all the twisted, wicked lies perpetrated by modern society, I believe that the purported necessity of learning algebra is the worst.

I feel like I don’t currently have the energy to tackle complex recipes. In fact, I hardly have the energy to follow recipes at all. My grand experiment — to follow recipes to the T for a whole year — collapsed like a sinkhole after a few weeks. I couldn’t help but tweak the spices or make substitutions or just earnestly wish that I could toss the whole recipe out the window and make something completely different.

Let’s just ignore the fact that everything I’ve made has been delicious. This level of success is becoming very tedious indeed. Where are my burnt crusts? My raw interiors? My accidental stovetop ignitions? Where is the curiosity, the excitement, the adventure? Where, in short, is the drama?

It might seem counterintuitive to seek drama in my kitchen when there is so much drama in the rest of the world. You’d think I’d want my kitchen to be calm, ordered and serene, everything flowing along like a symphony where each note is played in the proper order at the proper time. But the heart of my kitchen isn’t orderliness. It’s playfulness, which draws joy from freedom. When you’re playing, you’re not worried about the outcome. Your only objective is fun. In my personal weltanschauung — the indisputably glorious German word for “worldview” — the antidote to anxiety is not serenity. It’s creativity.

In that spirit, I have attempted to make stuffed whole cabbage, filled with ground beef, rice and herbs and simmered in a savory tomato sauce. This recipe calls for wrapping the entire head of cabbage in cheesecloth and cooking it upside down so that the filling doesn’t fall out but it soaks up the sauce. It also calls for a Dutch oven but I don’t have one so I had to improvise by going to Holland. Just kidding. I just used a big stockpot. Needs must when the devil drives, which is one of the weirdest idioms out there. I mean, I don’t think Satan even has a driver’s license.

This recipe is fun to make if you’ve got time. It took me an hour and a half from starting the water boiling for the rice to putting the stuffed cabbage on the stovetop to simmer. It’s simple, in concept — you take a cabbage, put meat inside and boil it in sauce — but it’s not easy. It’s got a lot of steps, starting with the most difficult and time consuming, which is hollowing out the cabbage. It’s comparable to hollowing out a pumpkin, although the stuffed cabbage recipes and videos online breeze past this part as though it’s no big deal.

This is not for the faint-hearted. You’re hacking at a recalcitrant cabbage with a very sharp knife. Just getting the core out took me about 10 minutes, during which time I became hyperaware of my fingers. I’m glad to report I still have all 10 digits. Once I pried the core out, I spent another 10 minutes alternating between a knife and spoon to cut and scrape out the middle, leaving about an inch of cabbage “shell.” I’m sure that easier ways exist and there are many YouTube videos full of tips and tricks on how to hollow out a cabbage, but now it’s too late and I’m probably never doing it again. On the other hand, it was somewhat enjoyable to whack at something with a sharp implement for 20 minutes. I’m usually not allowed to do that in real life.

The sauce is easy. You just dump everything in a bowl, though you do need to thicken it later with cornstarch, after removing the cooked cabbage. (I also added a bit more salt because tomatoes can be very salt-thirsty.) The hamburger mixture involves two steps, first sauteing chopped cabbage and onion and then mixing them with beef, spices, egg, salt and rice. No problem! Then you have to stuff the beef inside the cabbage and hope there’s room for all of it. I had about 1 cup of filling left over, which I froze to give to my dad later, because that’s what I do with all my leftovers. It’s a win-win. Anyhow, to avoid that you could either buy a larger cabbage or attempt to scrape even more out of your cabbage than I did, and good luck to you. You could also reduce the beef to ½ or ¾ pound and reduce the rice to ½ cup.

I also think a solid argument could be made for placing the cabbage in the pot meat-opening side up, eliminating the need for cheesecloth. This might also allow the juices from the meat to soak down through the cabbage while it’s cooking. At any rate, the cheesecloth isn’t really that fussy and maybe there’s a good reason to cook it meat side down. I am decidedly unfamiliar with the Ways of Stuffed Cabbage.

After all that bother, I do have to warn you that, like pea soup, this may not be the most attractive dish of all time. Cabbage becomes yellowish when it cooks and ground beef turns gray; it’s just the hard truth. However, the overall effect of placing an entire stuffed cabbage on the table is really quite dramatic. It even drew a “wow” of approval from my normally reserved husband. And it is delicious. Cabbage, beef and spices are powerful antidotes for very cold winter weather, hearty and warming and budget-friendly to boot. It can feed everyone at a family gathering or it can give you leftovers for several days. It can also be frozen for a few weeks to save you trouble on another cold night in March.

If you don’t eat beef, you could try this with ground turkey. If you’re vegetarian, don’t pass this recipe up. Experiment with plant-based “beef,” ground mushrooms or legumes. If you’re a pescatarian, how about a tuna-stuffed cabbage? Honestly, that doesn’t sound very good at all, but you never know. Be adventurous! If it tastes weird, you can always give the leftovers to my dad.

Stuffed Whole Cabbage

1 large head of Savoy cabbage, three to four pounds

2 teaspoons vegetable oil

1 medium onion, chopped

¾ to 1 pound ground beef (depending on size of cabbage)

½ to 3/4 cup cooked rice (depending on size of cabbage)

1 large egg, beaten

3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon lemon pepper

Sauce:

1 can (28 ounces) diced tomatoes, undrained

1 can (6 ounces) tomato paste

1 garlic clove, minced

3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

11/2 teaspoons fresh or dried oregano

1 teaspoon fresh or dried thyme

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1/2 to 1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon lemon pepper

1 cup water

2 tablespoons cornstarch

Grated fresh Parmesan cheese for garnish

Make the rice and set aside. (I cooked 1 cup of dry rice in order to have extra to serve with the cabbage.) Combine sauce ingredients except for water and cornstarch and set aside. Remove the core from the center of the cabbage and scoop or cut out the interior so that there’s a 1-inch shell. (Be careful and allow plenty of time for this step.) Discard the core and chop the remaining cabbage. Heat oil in a large skillet and saute the onion and 1 cup cabbage until tender. Remove from the heat. In a separate bowl, combine beef, onion mixture, 1 cup sauce, rice, egg, salt and pepper. Cover a large bowl with cheesecloth so that it overlaps the sides about 3 inches all around. Place cabbage in the middle of the cheesecloth, opening side up, and pack with filling (leftover filling can be frozen if necessary). Gather cheesecloth around cabbage and twist tightly to securely enclose cabbage leaves and filling. Place 1 cup water, remaining chopped cabbage and remaining sauce in a Dutch oven; mix well. Carefully add stuffed cabbage, with twisted cheesecloth facing down. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer, covered, until whole cabbage is tender and a thermometer inserted in the middle of the cabbage reads 165 degrees, or about 1½ hours. Carefully remove cabbage and discard cheesecloth. Sprinkle cornstarch into sauce and whisk vigorously to dissipate any lumps. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly until sauce is thickened, about 2 minutes. Cut cabbage into wedges; serve over a bed of rice or mashed potatoes with plenty of sauce and freshly grated Parmesan cheese.