Cabbage rolls with minced meat - a delicate and remarkably tasty dish and it is almost impossible to refuse them. The preparation of classic cabbage rolls, in which the meat filling is wrapped in a leaf, is a long and painstaking process. But you can always go on a simpler path, and the result will remain almost unchanged. We offer two step-by-step recipes for stuffed cabbage with minced meat: the classic version of the dish and the simpler one - lazy stuffed cabbage in the oven.
General principles for the preparation of stuffed cabbage with minced meat (step by step)
• Preparation of a classic dish consists of four basic steps: blanching cabbage leaves, preparing the filling, forming cabbage rolls and preparing the filling. Lazy cabbage rolls are a simplified version of the dish. The preparation of products takes a minimum of time. All you need to do is cook the minced meat, boil the rice, chop the cabbage and mix everything. As for the classic ones, refueling is prepared separately. The dish is baked in the oven or stewed in a slow cooker. The selection includes a step-by-step recipe for lazy cabbage rolls with minced meat for the oven, which are just as elementary prepared in a slow cooker.
• The main products that are required for cabbage rolls: meat for minced meat, cabbage, cereals.
• It is advisable to cook minced meat mixed. For this purpose, you need to take pork with young beef, in equal shares. However, this is a matter of taste, you can grind one type of meat, or add, say, chicken.
• Of cereals, minced meat is most often added to rice; it makes the filling friable. The seeds are pre-sorted, then washed and boiled in slightly salted water, not more than 10 minutes. You can’t bring the croup to readiness. With further stewing, it simply boils into porridge. It is not recommended to add it even raw, otherwise the filling will lose its juiciness.
• The right choice of rice is important. Long grain cereal is not suitable for cabbage rolls - it will absorb a lot of minced meat juice. Some people prefer to replace rice with pearl barley or buckwheat. Buckwheat groats, like rice, need to boil a little beforehand. Barley is boiled until tender. It is rather difficult to digest such cereal to the state of "a little mess".
• In addition to cereals, vegetables are necessarily added to the meat mass: carrots and onions. They complement the filling with their own taste and make it even juicier. Passer vegetables or add raw.
• Stuffed cabbage can be prepared from both young and late cabbage. The step-by-step recipe in any case does not change, only the cooking time is reduced. Young cabbage comes to readiness faster. When blanching, forks of young cabbage need to be kept in boiling water for no more than a minute. In this case, it is advisable to add a little vinegar to the boiling water, it will not allow the leaves to creep.
• A filling for stuffed cabbage with meat in step-by-step recipes is prepared on the basis of tomato paste, and seasonally, fresh tomatoes can be added to it. Soften tomato sauce with sour cream or mayonnaise.
• Stuffed cabbage stews in a pan always with a slight boil. Intensive drilling can lead to the fact that the bundles with the filling will unfold. The oven is heated to 180 degrees and maintain the established mode until the dishes are ready. To adapt any version of cabbage rolls with minced meat for a slow cooker, the sequence of actions in the step-by-step recipe is not changed, they are prepared in the "Stew" mode. The time is set, taking into account the appearance of cabbage rolls and cabbage.
Classic stuffed cabbage with minced meat: a step by step recipe
According to the classic recipe, minced meat is wrapped in fresh cabbage leaves. Choosing the right forks is a big challenge. The cabbage soup should be medium in size. From small, too small cabbage rolls are obtained, and from large leaves are too large. Sometimes on the market you can find cabbage leaves sold by weight - a very convenient option.
Ingredients:
• two medium heads of cabbage;
• a pound of pork (neck);
• beef pulp - 500 gr.;
• a full glass of round-grain rice;
• two large onions;
• three tablespoons of thick high-quality tomato;
• lean non-aromatic oil;
• fatty mayonnaise;
• three medium-sized carrots.
Cooking method:
1. We wash the forks, remove the top, rough leaves from it. In the remaining upper leaves, near the stump, we cut through the compacted places. We put the forks in a spacious pan and pour enough water so that it is completely covered. We temporarily get the cabbage, and place the container on the maximum fire.
2. After waiting for an intense boil, we chop the cabbage from the side of the stalk onto the fork and lower it into boiling water. After boiling for two minutes, check, raise the forks and slightly push back the topmost sheet. If it separates well, remove it. Do the same with other leaves. If the leaf doesn’t go, return the head of cabbage for two minutes back to boiling water. We do so until smooth leaves cease to be removed. In the process, we cut dense veins located at the base of the leaves and on their surface in the middle. Put the prepared cabbage in a bowl.
3. Cooking the minced meat, and the first thing you need to start with is rice. We scatter the groats on the table, remove the litter in the form of small stones and husks. We select poorly polished and damaged, with black marks, grains. We collect the sorted rice into a saucepan and rinse thoroughly. Boil the rice until half cooked. Pour the cereal with cold water, put on strong heat. After boiling, slightly lower the heat and cook rice at low boil for about ten minutes. Then we pour the entire contents of the pan into a colander, and, after washing, we leave it so that all the moisture comes off.
4. Boiled or uncooked rice is not recommended for minced meat. Raw cereals, will pull the maximum meat juice from the minced meat, as a result of which stuffing with stuffed cabbage will turn out to be dry and hard. When rice is cooked, it will turn into porridge with further stewing.
5. While the rice is drying, we are engaged in vegetables. After peeling the onions and carrots, grind them: finely, cut the onions into slices, and carrots in three large, grated. The root crop gives the stuffed cabbage juiciness and therefore it is undesirable to reduce its amount. In addition to juiciness, carrots give the meat filling a light sweetness, but if you think this is unnecessary, use less carrots, choose an unsweetened variety or exclude it altogether, and add more onions.
6. Vegetables need to be spassed. We put a thick-walled pan on medium heat, pour one and a half tablespoons of vegetable oil into it and warm it well. We spread carrots in hot fat. Often stirring, fry until soft and spread on a plate, cool. In the same frying pan in oil, we pass the onions until transparent, and cool it.
7. The turn has come to meat. Cut thickened films from the pulp, rinse with running water. Cut into large pieces and twist in a meat grinder. If you are practicing the preparation of meat dishes from convenience foods, you can use minced meat, but always high quality, to save time.
8. Spread the minced meat in a wide bowl. Add to it vegetables and rice, cooled after passivation. It should be noted that the amount of rice indicated in the recipe is rather arbitrary. It can be put more or less, depending on what kind of filling you like. With this proportion of meat, vegetables and rice, it will turn out more similar to vegetable. If you prefer a version with a stronger meat taste, reduce the amount of rice by a third, or increase the recommended amount of meat by 200 gr. Season the minced meat with pepper, slightly add and knead well.
9. The leaves are prepared, the mince is ready - we proceed to folding cabbage rolls. Take the prepared cabbage leaf, put it with the inside up and turn the base towards you. We spread a little stuffing on the sheet, put the edge closest to it on it. Then we turn up the edges and collapse the sheet with the filling in the form of a tube. We spread the formed cabbage rolls into a large pan with a multilayer bottom. We try to lay them out not too tight so that there is room for filling. We put the duckies with a seam down, so they will not turn around.
10. Prepare the fill. We grow tomato paste with three glasses of drinking water. Add two tablespoons of mayonnaise and carefully stir the sauce in a tomato mixture. If necessary, add and carefully fill in the cabbage rolls. We make sure that the fill level in the pan is approximately the thickness of a finger below the top layer of cabbage rolls. You can add the sauce not with mayonnaise, but with sour cream. For a more delicate tomato taste, add half a glass of tomato juice to the fill or grind two small, possibly overripe, tomatoes into a coarse grater. Some chefs advise adding gravy with sauteed onions.
11. Put the pan with cabbage rolls on the stove, bring to a boil, and then reduce the heat to almost a minimum, simmer for 60 minutes. We cook with the lid tightly closed, making sure that the gravy does not run out of the pan. Cabbage rolls are considered ready when the cabbage is soft.
12. Serve classic cabbage rolls with minced meat, watering with sour cream or any thick sauce based on it. Sour cream can be replaced with mayonnaise.
Lazy cabbage rolls with minced meat: a step-by-step recipe for the oven
A step-by-step recipe for lazy cabbage rolls with minced meat, allows you to cook your favorite dish much faster. Cabbage does not require blanching, it is crushed on a grater or finely chopped, and then mixed with meat mass.
Stuffed cabbage is not made from minced meat, it is laid out in a uniform layer, after which it is filled with dressing and baked. Lazy cabbage rolls with minced meat according to a step-by-step recipe can also be prepared in the multicooker bowl using the "Stewing" program.
Ingredients:
• a choice of half a kilo of chicken or mixed minced meat;
• two medium carrots;
• a glass of rice, preferably round-grain;
• two onions;
• 800 gr. white cabbage.
To fill:
• bitter onions - 2 small heads;
• parsley root - 40 grams;
• large carrot;
• three tablespoons of vegetable oil;
• 60 gr. thick tomato;
• a spoonful of sugar;
• fresh or dried chopped dill.
Cooking method:
1. First of all, you need to prepare a vegetable dressing. We clean the vegetables, wash off the remaining dirt with water. Cut the carrots and roots into thin strips, chop the onions finely. To chop carrots, you can use a coarse grater. We spread the vegetables in a frying pan with vegetable oil, cover the simmer with a lid and simmer over low heat. Stir occasionally so as not to burn. When the vegetables become soft and the roasting acquires a pleasant golden hue, add the tomato. Pour 250 milliliters of cool water into the vegetables, add a little ground pepper, sugar and salt. Thoroughly mix the dressing and leave to simmer for three minutes at low heat. We turn off the heat, introduce finely chopped dill into the dressing.
2. Cooking minced meat. Meat requirements, as for any homemade minced meat dish. It is advisable to take pork with beef, in approximately equal parts. From pork, it is better to give emphasis to the underline. You can, of course, use other meat, for example, chicken (breast). The filling in this case will turn out less juicy, but dietary. Wash the pulp, cut into pieces. We assemble the meat grinder and set it to maximum grinding - we install a grate with small holes. Grind the meat and collect the minced meat in a volumetric bowl.
3. We sort and wash the rice, fill it with water, slightly add salt. Stirring well, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and cook the grits for 7 minutes, until half cooked. We recline in a colander, rinse and leave in it so that the remaining water drains to the maximum.
4. Peel the onions, wash the forks of cabbage with water. Take a grater with large cells and grind cabbage on it. If you are skilled in shredding, chop the cabbage as thinly, as short as possible. Grind onions and carrots, using large grater cells.
5. Mix the minced meat with rice, add chopped cabbage, carrots and onions. Slightly add weight, season with pepper and mix thoroughly.
6. We take a small refractory form with high sides, we rub the walls and the bottom with vegetable oil. We spread the prepared meat mass and evenly distribute it throughout the bottom of the mold. Pressing lightly with a spoon, we compact the meat layer over the entire surface. Pour the vegetable fill on top.
7. Place the dish in the oven at the recommended 180 degrees. We cook for the first sample 55 minutes, you can take a little longer
8. A step-by-step recipe for stuffed cabbage with minced meat can be adapted for a slow cooker. The sequence of laying out the components in the bowl is the same as in the form. Cooking time on the Baking option is one hour.
Tricks of cooking stuffed cabbage with minced meat according to step-by-step recipes - useful observations and recommendations
1. Tomato dressing with sauce or pasta usually has a sharp taste. To soften, add a little sugar or sour cream to it. Some cooks, for a milder tomato flavor, are advised to add mashed fresh tomatoes to the fill.
2. Do not digest rice, with prolonged stewing or baking the main dish, it can turn into porridge. Uncooked cereal is not recommended. It will absorb most of the meat juice, and the filling will suffer - it will lose its juiciness.
3. Stir the rice into the minced meat gradually, in small portions. This will help determine its quantity.
4. Any of the above step by step recipes can be used when preparing a dish in a slow cooker. The mode of preparation of stuffed cabbage in such a device is the "Stew" program, and the duration depends on the type of stuffed cabbage. Classic cabbage rolls with minced meat will require at least an hour and a half, and an hour will be lazy enough.
