I have written, only occasionally, about my grandfather, "Tati." If you've read those entries, you know why. The emotions of writing about him are tough. As my emotions seem to be right out there on the surface of my skin, no matter how I try to keep them in check, the combination of an inherent property of yours truly, and the memories of this wonderful man, sort of overwhelm me. It really isn't until recently that I recalled how much he loved this dish. And how Nana would NOT make it for him. Cabbage really does not have much place in an Italian kitchen. She would make coleslaw every once in a while, and she felt compelled, when we were older, to make corned beef and cabbage on St Patrick's Day (it was awful), that was about it. And I've told you how cabbage gave Tati gas, and Nana would give him grief about this whenever he went out and had it.
It took me a LONG time to "cotton" to cabbage. I'm still not going to eat brussel sprouts (incidentally, I LOVE the Italian word for them: cavolini, or "little cabbages. " That's a new word to Italian, since Brussel sprouts are not an Italian vegetable either). And as far as stuffed cabbage went, I always had a feeling that it was a difficult, time consuming dish, not worth the trouble. And indeed, many of the recipes for it that I found, were so intricate, I wondered how anyone could ever make it.
Well, I found one that I really like. Some years ago, Marian Cunningham, a true treasure in the cooking world, published an almost unnoticed book called "Forgotten Recipes." In going through it, indeed, it is my opinion that there is a reason why most of these recipes were forgotten. They're just not very good. Even the stuffed cabbage recipe, good as it was, needed modification. Ms. Burros had essentially presented recipes from a day long past. In that period, dishes like this one were sweeter, and were "spicier" in the sense that they had sweet spices in them. The original recipe for t his dish contained allspice and cloves. Nice in some things, but they were put into the tomato sauce base of the recipe, and that just bothered me big time. So, too, did the brown sugar. So I make this in a simpler form, and it's a good dish to make. If Tati were around, I would want to make it for him. But I would also want to fall into his arms and have him hold me the way he did when I was very young. I'm fortunate enough to have found a friend who's arms remind me of those strong, "Tati arms," and I try to get him to hug me as much as I can. It's not the same, but we learn that what we have is pretty darn good. I'd make it for James, too.
So, here we go. You will need a head of cabbage, say about 2-2.5 pounds. That's really not that big a head . You can use savoy, or plain cabbage. I'm going to come back to this in a minute. You will also need a generous 2 cups of tomato sauce - you may even want to go with 2.5 cups. Also, 2 cups of cooked white rice. Finally, you will need 2 pounds of ground meat of some kind. I like to use a 50/50 mixture of beef and pork, or all pork in this recipe. You could, however, use whatever you like. I do think that this would even work with ground turkey.
Prepping the cabbage is the hardest part of this recipe, and there are several ways to do it. The way I do it is to start by removing any leaves that I just wouldn't eat. DOn't throw them out. We'll get back to that. Then, cut out the core of the head of cabbage with a sharp knife, to enable you to peel the leaves off, one at a time. Patience and steadiness, and don't worry if they tear. This dish is forgiving.
Eventually, you'll get to the point where "the law of diminishing returns" sets in. In other words, like those stacking Russian dolls, you'll get to something small, and non-separatable. You can chop that up and use it in the dish too. We're gonna "use it all."
Take those whole leaves, and put them into a big pot of salted, boiling water, and cook them for about five minutes. Drain them, and let them cool down. (Indeed, if you do the cabbage prep first, you can make the rice and get the sauce ready while they cool).
There IS an ingenious way of separating cabbage leaves, if you have the room in your freezer. This comes from Jacques Pepin. What you do is cut away that center piece, and freeze the whole head. The next day, thaw the cabbage. If you do this, you don't have to boil the leaves. I never have any room in the freezer for a head of cabbage, so I always use the boiling water method. No big deal.
Okay, w hile those leaves are cooling, take 2 cups of that 2.5 cups of sauce, and add the chopped meat to it. Cook this over low heat, just until the meat loses its pinkness. Stir to break it up. You're going to notice something very interesting: the sauce is going to become "intermingled in the meat, and it won't be very liquid. That's exactly what you want. Taste it and add salt and pepper to your liking (you will need it). Finally, stir in that rice.
Get a big, 9x13 pan ready by pouring that reserved half cup of sauce over the bottom of it. If you had left over small leaves of cabbage, chop them and put them on the sauce. Then, put that aside and take the cabbage leaves, one at a time, and fill them with a spoonful of your sauce and meat mixture. Don't overfill them, because we do have a use for the leftover filling. IF, as is frequently the case, the base stem of the leaf is too tough to allow you to roll it up, cut away as much as you need to allow it to roll, just like a tortilla. Put them, seam side down in your pan, and if you have to stack them, so be it. If there is extra filling left, put that on top of the rolls.
Remember those leaves that were really ucky and you couldn't see using them? Well, now you will. Put the whole leaves on top of everything, as if to protect them, because they will. What those leaves do is act to keep the dish from drying out. You are going to put a big piece of foil over it anyway, but the cabbage leaf protectors are nice, if you have them. Bake the dish at 350 for an hour. It might be useful to you to put it on a baking sheet to bring it to the oven (it is for me).
After an hour, you will have a PLEASANT smell of cooking cabbage in the house, and you'll see bubbling around the edges of the dish. It's VERY hot at this point, so let it cool down. Even better, if you have the time, let it chill overnight and eat it the next day. Reheat it with the foil cover, and take away the cover leaves.
The traditional accompaniments for this are apple sauce or sour cream, or both. I've never gotten used to the sweet element with the dish. Tati used to love it with potato pancakes. He'd put applesauce on the pancakes, and eat the cabbage with sour cream, that he'd augment with sauerkraut juice. I use the sour cream, but not the sauerkraut juice, and now that I think about it, I can't really give a reason why I don't. Maybe it's simply because I don't have it around, but that can certainly be fixed.
This is a time of year for remembrance. As we get closer to December 21, and the days get shorter, and we sink into more and more of the night (can you tell I've been listening to Tristan und Isolde, you OQs out t here?), our departed loved ones do visit more and more, and memories stir up that you thought were gone. In many ways, this is the saddest season of the year. Try to enliven it by remembering something good to go with the sad. Yes, I miss Tati. I miss him DEARLY. But making this and eating it makes me remember all of the good that I had in the too short time that I knew him.
I expect you at the table, Tati. Come and join us.
When you're done, if
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