Stuffed Cabbage

Join me in my kitchen, with my grandson Lorenzo, as I prepare this delicious northern Italian dish. Cabbage rolls are very much part of my culinary heritage. My family grew Savoy cabbage, and I grew up on sarme, the Istrian interpretation of stuffed cabbage. Sarme are a more sour preparation, since our cooking on the eastern edge of Italy had many Slavic and Eastern European influences. The polpette di verza of Lombardy are sweeter (though the wine in this recipe provides a nice balance). Whatever the differences, I love all kinds of stuffed cabbage, and love to serve them at special family occasions.
These polpette make a fine appetizer as well as a main course. I serve the rolls in a warm bowl, so the sauce can be scooped up with each bite. For a main dish, accompany them with Riso alla Lombarda, polenta, or mashed potatoes. Tutti a Tavola a Mangiare!

#fromlidiastabletoyours #LidiasRecipes #LidiasItaly #LidiasKitchen #LidiaBastianich #ItalianFood #25YearsofLidia

Braised Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

Be sure to hit the Subscribe button so you don’t miss any upcoming episodes!
Follow Lidia!
Official website: https://lidiasitaly.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LidiaBastianich
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LidiaBastianich
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lidiabastianich

Here we are in the kitchen with Loreno Loren how you doing all right we’re going to make stuffed cabbage I don’t think I thought you that no no not yet and what you need of course is a good a Sao cabbage a nice one and what you want

Is the leaves ultimately so what we need to do is we need to get the core out so you go around and I’m trying what I’m trying to do is at the end to get all the way down so I can pull this core out so let’s go in

There okay it’s coming so here we go and I’m going to take this and I’m going to put it in boiling water and what’s going to happen slowly the leaves from the Cabbage will release itself but still you want to leave them a little bit in

Here so they become kind of soft and then take them out and we put them in ice water just like that to cool off so we can work with them so now we’ll make the sauce the base of a good sauce and is a pist so a Pata is some

Onions you’re taking mental notes here yes definitely it’s carrots celery some Rosemary some Sage garlic and voila this is a Pata so Lorena put just some oil in the pan go ahead a little more that’s enough that’s good let’s put half of the pist for the sauce half of the Pata you

Can put it all in here and this is sauce just out of the casing that’s trying to get everything yeah yeah that’s good I’m going to put some water I’m going to soak this bread and Loreno just turn the bread until it’s completely soaked and

Then you kind of squeeze it out of the water and that’s going to be part of the filling so here I have the pestata I’m going to add the onions to the pestata now and let that welt and and yeah you squeeze it good job and now now kind of

Crumple it that’s it crumple it all in there and do that to all of that bread so let me check on the sauce here the onion is welting that’s nice the heart of the Sao cabbage was left we’re going to cut it and use it in the

Sauce okay I’m going to throw this into the sauce so it can cook all Together smells delicious uhhuh okay so that’s welting again you know the sauce nice and easy we’re working on the sauce now on the filling I’m going to whis this egg and I’m going to put all of this parsley here go for it all yeah I think so I’m a parsley fan

I love parsley too I’m going to put some cheese too who doesn’t love cheese mhm okay so I’m thinking about salt but between the cheese and the Sausages being salty yeah I don’t think we will we need any of that right yeah well if we need some We’ll add some okay so here

Is the egg let me whisk the egg and now you can really get your hands in there ah so the onions are wilted I’m going to add the tomato these are Plum peeled tomatoes from the can you know how I squash them and just add them right in

There we need some more water to put all of that in here so that’s good so let me see see you did a good job ohce hom H homogeneous homogenous homogeneous there you go this back on so it comes back to boil so here is our cabbage

Right here let me take so you see each leave has a rib and that kind of is difficult to fold in so what you do you slowly with a pairing knife just take that part off and now you can bend it can I try sure like

This yeah just that’s perfect and now we can begin to roll our cabbage you make take a little bit of no a little bit of meat just like that enough to fit in here and what you do is you begin to roll you roll roll when you’re halfway

Through you tuck these in so it doesn’t come out the side just like that and you continue to roll into a nice compact little package so now we’ll do one together so give me a little roll and you take yourself a little roll it’s a little M here no that’s fine with

Me that’s it here it’s okay it broke a little bit here but yeah this in Tuck this in then tuck that in one side then tuck the other side in you’re getting it very good so that’s nice and and you put it right there so go ahead you’re going to be finishing those

I’m going to start nestling these in the sauce nice and easy and as you see I reduced the sauce last one so you know I’m kind of nestling him so that the flap is underneath because when it Cooks the Cabbage will adhere to the meat okay and since this is layered you

Cannot go in and mix you have to periodically go with the wooden spoon in the corner and kind of check and move them around a little bit but what works well is that you just shake the like that you know so that you move them from underneath so that they don’t stick I

Always predicate about tasting things you we have one left put it in the corner here where right there okay here we go okay put the lid on 45 minutes it should be done now when you cook in the kitchen you clean in the kitchen so it’s

Time to clean up of course EA is a border uh uh situation between West Western Europe and Eastern Europe and there’s a lot of diversity there in cultures which is beautiful there’s remnants of those influences Through the Ages that is evident in the cuisine for example s the stuff cabbage s is a

Turkish word so coming up even from the Ottoman Empire crawled up uh the coastline there and you know left and some of those dishes uh are still cooked and I love making them and people love them Loreno the Cabbage you see how it kind of cooked down reduced yeah and the

Cabbage itself wilted kind of around this so let’s plate the cabbage rolls so you see what I’m doing I’m keeping this underneath so that my bowl ah there you go so you don’t need to clean nice one and they really become deliciously soft and the meat in there is you know M

And this I think is nice if you bring it to the table family style like this huh I think it’s perfect yeah good one mm just like that I think give me the our two plates put put put them here so one is for me one is for

You wow okay I got a whistle from you not finished yet a little bit of sauce over these and why don’t you present it to our audience right there that looks good all right and there it’s you and I a little bit for me a little bit for you

So what I’m going to do is I’m going to cut one because I really want them to see what’s in there and how does it look the nice little bundle of delicious uh stuffing that you made wow and let’s see how it tastes that’s the way to do it m good

Delicious wow it’s nice and juicy and light youan would think it’s it’s heavy but it’s nice and light we work very hard we deserve a little dessert so I thought that we would kind of build something quick absolutely to have after our cabbage awesome I’ll taste mine you

Can taste yours it’s little strawberry a little chocolate yeah nuts M these strawberries are so shall I say Jammy they’re delicious and of course this uh uh Wafers delicious nice crunch delicious now we certainly have enough what do we say at the end you want invite them exactly so one 2 3

Come and join us