These Are Not My Mother’s Cabbage Rolls, or Are They? Low Sodium Too!

You know there are those days when you just have to cook something a bit complicated, something fussy, something that will mess up your kitchen like crazy, and result in a succulent, mind-boggling food sensation that will send you back to your childhood with one bite.  Cabbage Rolls do that for me. Today was the day.  In-between major tasks at work and home, weather nice but not nice enough to be out in it, no shopping to be done or projects to finish, and feeling a bit restless, I just had to venture into cabbage rolls which I hadn’t made in years.  And honestly, never made like I did today. A trip to the World Food Festival last September found myself standing in line over and over for the Russian Cabbage Roll Taste. One dollar, one small roll. Worth the wait, definitely worth the $1.  These rolls became my ideal cabbage roll, but combined with my childhood rolls the two became one. Could be tricky! My mother used to make cabbage rolls but I remember hers being held together by toothpicks, stuffed with some spaghetti type filling and swimming in a sea of canned tomato soup. We loved them and they were always a treat but most things my mother cooked were. She had the knack.

A good jumping off point for today’s cabbage rolls. Once I began the chopping, weighing, boiling, steaming, cooking I realized these cabbage rolls had been on the back burner of my brain for some time.  Once I began cooking these rolls and jotting down the portions and ingredients in my red pen I felt like I had already rehearsed these many times. They seemed a food memory that hadn’t yet presented itself. Odd, but that happens sometimes with me and food. Enough. Cabbage rolls ahead! Bon voyage!

Ingredients

1 head of cabbage. Pick out a firm, crisp looking medium-sized head. If you can get both hands around it and your fingers touch, it is too small!

8 ounces ground bison or other burger meat of your choice

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon dried

minced onion

½ cup finely diced celery

¼ teaspoon fennel seed, rubbed in your palm before adding

1 ½ teaspoon Spanish paprika

½ teaspoon black pepper

¼ teaspoon pink salt

1 ½ cup cooked brown rice

1 can diced tomatoes, 14 ounce

1 can tomato soup

2 teaspoons prepared yellow mustard

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

1 tablespoon raw sugar

Place a medium head of cabbage in your pot.  Fill with water to cover the cabbage at least one inch.  Remove the head of cabbage and bring water to boil.  Meanwhile remove the thick white core of the cabbage.  Once the water comes to boil carefully place the head of cabbage back in the water.  Continue cooking 3 minutes.  Cover pot and remove from heat.  Allow cabbage to sit in water in covered pot for 10 minutes.  Remove cabbage onto towel.  Carefully roll off leaves of cabbage. Place on towel.  You need 12 large leaves.  If some leaves tear or split do not worry, they will still work. Set leaves aside.

In skillet cook 8 ounces ground lean bison in 1 tablespoon olive oil. As meat browns chop so pieces are quite fine.  Add 1 tablespoon mince, dried onion, ½ cup finely diced celery and sauté 8 minutes on medium heat.

Add ¼ teaspoon dried fennel seed, 1 ½ teaspoon Spanish paprika, ½ teaspoon black pepper, and ¼ teaspoon pink salt.

Stir and add 1 ½ cup cooked brown rice, and 1 cup drained, (save the juice for later!) diced, canned tomatoes.

Cook filling 5 minutes on medium and remove from heat.

Oil a 9 x 13 baking pan.  Pour juice from 14 oz can diced tomatoes into bottom of pan. Coat evenly.

Lay cooled cabbage leave in front of you. If base center seems thick and hard, snip out with kitchen shears.  Place ¼ cup filling on center of cabbage leaf.  Roll up tightly and tuck ends in as you roll. Cabbage rolls should be tight and a bit dense. Place seam side down in prepared baking pan. Continue with remaining 11 cabbage leaves. Drizzle rolls with remaining diced tomatoes. Cover with foil and rest at room temperature for 30 minutes. Chill 4 hours or overnight.

Prior to baking mix tomato soup, mustard, sugar, vinegar. Drizzle over cabbage rolls.

Bake covered at 325 for 30 minutes. Remove foil and cook 5 additional minutes. Allow to rest 5 – 6 minutes prior to serving.

*Great served with sour cream with chives.