Monday, January 30, 2012

Nora's Hungarian Cabbage Rolls

Nora showed Marne and me how to make these before they moved back to Hungary. Since that was a while ago, I may have forgotten some things. Nora, feel free to make any corrections to the recipe! These are definitely delicious, though.

1 head green cabbage
1- 1 1/2 pounds ground pork
2-3 cups white rice
sweet paprika
vegetable soup seasoning mix (Nora used Knorr brand I think)
1 large onion
oil for sauteing
1-2 lrg cans tomato sauce (I don't remember for sure!)

Wash and core the cabbage. Steam/boil the cabbage in salted water in pot. As leaves soften, take them off and out of the water. Trim out the hard center vein and cut the leaves in half. Chop up the smaller inner leaves and reserve. Also reserve water used to steam the leaves.

Cook onion until softened in oil in saucepan. Mix raw pork, paprika, salt, pepper, uncooked rice, vegetable soup mix and onion together in bowl; season to smell.

Place 1-2 tbsp of pork mixture on a cabbage leaf and roll up tightly, tucking in the ends. Do this until all pork mixture is gone. Place about half of the reserved chopped cabbage in the bottom of a pot and arrange cabbage rolls tightly on top. Top with remainder of chopped cabbage.

Fill the pot with the water reserved from steaming the cabbage leaves. Use a plate on top of the cabbage rolls to hold them down and cook for about 30 minutes or until pork and rice are cooked. Add the tomato sauce the last 5 minutes. Bring to a boil for a few minutes to combine the tomato sauce and water. Serve with sour  cream (I mean the real stuff people...full fat!) and french bread.

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