Gołąbki: Polish cabbage rolls with pork and rice in tomato sauce
Classic white-cabbage rolls: a filling of pork, rice and fried onion, stewed for an hour in stock and served in a thick tomato sauce finished with sour cream. Makes twelve, and they are even better the next day.
Your own work in that: 1 h 25 min.
- Cabbage 25 min
- Filling 20 min
- Rolling 25 min
- Stewing 65 min
- Sauce 15 min
Step by step
0 / 7 done
Blanch the cabbage
Cut the core out of the head with a knife, deep and cone-shaped. Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil and put the cabbage in core side down. Simmer, and every 2–3 minutes lift off the outer leaves that have softened with a fork. You need 12 large leaves plus a few to line the pot. Smaller inner leaves can be used two at a time, overlapping.
Ingredients: 1 pcs white cabbage · 1 tbsp salt
TipKeep the cabbage water: it is a ready-made, slightly sweet stock for the stewing.
Cabbage in the water, leaves coming off one by one
Trim the ribs
Shave the thick central rib of each leaf flat from the underside with a knife, so the leaf folds without splitting. Don't cut it out, or the leaf falls apart.
Rib shaved flat, the leaf rolls
Make the filling
Cook the rice halfway (7 minutes in salted water), drain. Dice the onions finely and soften in butter. Mix the meat with the rice, onion, egg, salt, pepper and marjoram. Work it with your hand until uniform and slightly sticky.
Ingredients: 600 g minced pork · 150 g white rice · 2 pcs onions · 30 g butter · 1 pcs egg · 2 tsp salt · 1 tsp black pepper · 1 tbsp dried marjoram
TipHalf-cooked rice finishes in the pot, soaking up the juices from the meat. Fully cooked, it turns to mush.
Filling worked by hand, sticky
Roll the gołąbki
Divide the filling into 12 equal portions (about 90 g each). Put a portion on a leaf near the stem end. Fold the sides in, then roll into a tight parcel from the stem towards the tip. Tight, but without squeezing filling out.
Sides in, then a tight roll
Pack the pot and stew
Line the bottom of a wide pot with the leftover leaves. Pack the rolls in tightly seam side down, in one or two layers. Add the bay leaves and allspice, pour in hot stock to come three-quarters of the way up (if 500 ml is not enough, top up with the cabbage water). Cover and simmer gently for 60 minutes.
Ingredients: 500 ml stock or the cabbage cooking water · 500 ml tomato passata · 2 tbsp tomato paste · 100 g sour cream, 18 % · 1 tbsp plain flour · 1 tsp sugar · 2 pcs bay leaves · 3 pcs allspice berries
TipInstead of the pot: a covered ovenproof dish at 180 °C for 90 minutes. The leaves come out silky.
Tight, seam down, in leaves
Make the sauce
Ladle 300 ml of the stewing liquid into a saucepan, add the passata, tomato paste, sugar and a pinch of salt and pepper. Simmer 10 minutes. Mix the sour cream with the flour and a few spoons of hot sauce, pour into the pan and bring to the boil until the sauce thickens.
Sauce finished with sour cream and flour
Serve
Lift the rolls out with a spatula and spoon the sauce over. With mashed potatoes or bread. The liquid left in the pot is for reheating them tomorrow.
Under the sauce, with mash
Before you start
The leaves split
Under-blanched cabbage or ribs left too thick. Return the leaf to boiling water for a minute. Freezing the whole head (for a day) and thawing it also softens the leaves, no blanching needed.
Meat-free
Instead of meat and rice: 200 g buckwheat cooked until fluffy, 400 g button mushrooms fried with onion, an egg, salt, pepper and marjoram. Stew 45 minutes.
Freezing
Stewed rolls with their sauce freeze very well. Reheat covered over low heat.
Nutrition
per 100 gStep photos are computer-generated from the recipe.
