I've been meaning to make these for a LONG time. Once I went vegan, I felt a bit like I couldn't. Well...now I did because I've got the time and I really got into ancestry and knowing more about my family.
I remember my Great Grandmother. She passed away when I was an adult with one of my own kids. Unfortunately, I never spent a lot of time with her. I never asked all the questions that I have now. I never tasted her Cabbage Rolls that she was famous for. I remember the smell of her house, and I loved that smell. I couldn't place it...until now, when I made my house smell like it. Her house smelled like boiled cabbage! And popcorn, because she always homemade popcorn for us kids on Halloween. We would go over with our costumes on, and she'd give us each a hot brown lunch sack of yummy popcorn, always smiling. She loved kids!
I hesitated to make her Famous Hungarian Cabbage Rolls because I am vegan and, clearly, needed to alter them. I thought surely I would be making her turn in her grave. But now that I've made them, I feel like she would have been at my side, giving me pointers and perfectly ok with my substitutions.
So...Hungarian Cabbage Rolls. A labor intensive, love intensive, amazingly delicious meal that even the pickiest of eaters (... ummm...me... ... and Emma ...) will love.
Great-Grandma Dean's Hungarian Cabbage Rolls Recipe
From her Church's recipe book in 1984, with handwriting
from her daughter, my Grandma Harris
Of note - Paprika isn't in the ingredient list! I know, I was shocked as well. I consider myself the queen of paprika, so this did not go unnoticed...and I assumed it was a mistake. However, while making this, I completely forgot to add it in to the "meat" mixture and ended up making a sauce with it instead, and it was amazing anyway. I also added garlic and an extra onion to my 2 bags of vegan frozen "ground meat" instead of the real meat. I used about 3 cups of brown rice (she likely used white rice, but I didn't have any on hand). I also used in total about 1 - 1 1/2 cups of olive oil, since vegan meat has literally no fat in it. Now onto making them!
Pretty cabbage leaves, ready to be filled and rolled, with almost ready mixture in the background
First: fake meat, onions, and about a cup of olive oil, then, added in brown rice. Next time I will precook the rice as it was a tad too much on the al dente side. The rice sucked up most of the oil and may have also hindered it absorbing the water in the 3 hour simmer, so next time precook and shorten the simmer time to 2 hours so it doesn't get too mushy (and the vegan meat was precooked as well since it had been frozen, and it held up nicely to a 3 hour simmer!).
Next comes filling the leaf. Now, when making these with real meat, you do not precook your meat, and therefore do not put hot oily fake meat in your still warm cabbage leaf. Give it time to cool! Your hands will thank you!
Pretty little roll. I had better luck rolling them on the cutting board than in my hand. Mom remembered they were roughly the size and shape of an egg roll, so that's what I went for. They were a LOT of fun to roll up!
Sauerkraut (2 lbs!) in bottom of large pot
Rolls on top of the sauerkraut
1/2 c olive oil and onions sauteing for the gravy
Done gravy - water and about 1/4 c flour added after onion saute done
Gravy on the rolls, then boiling water over the rolls until rolls are covered. I cheated and used the already boiled water from boiling the cabbage head. We are in a drought and ought not be wasteful.
Weigh down the rolls so they aren't floaters and unwrapping themselves. I didn't have a plate large enough and heavy enough, so I have a light medium plate with three heavier stoneware bowls on top! I thought it was over-kill, but that plate was floating by the end! These rolls mean business!
Also, At this point I realize I forgot to add in some paprika to the meat mixture and added about 2 tbsp to the water. I don't think it did much of anything, other than enhance the amazing aromas in my house. Totally worth it.
While the rolls are simmering for three hours, take a shower (because this was hard work on a hot day in a hot kitchen!), then make some sauce. Great-Grandma likely used a simple can of tomato sauce (as stated in her recipe, and also from research, the typical sauce is a smooth tomato puree or a watered down tomato paste). Well, tomato paste on it's own grosses me out just a bit. So I thought I'd use some jarred marinara ... a little Italian fusion, perhaps? But no, because my dear husband forgot to put it on the grocery list when he took the last jar out of the pantry. I didn't want to go SO Italian as to put actual Spaghetti Sauce on these! If the fake meat didn't make her turn in her grave, sure that would have! So, I did what I do best and love doing ... sauce improv. I did a bit of research and came up with this recipe for my amazing Hungarian Cabbage Roll Sauce. It's probably good on other stuff too, since I love paprika so much! And Cabbage.
Terry's Pretending to be Authentic Hungarian Tomato Sauce for Cabbage Rolls
1 (14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes
1 (6 oz) can tomato paste
6 oz paste can filled with water
1 1/2 tsp paste veggie bouillon (the low sodium is best - if yours has sodium, omit the extra salt)
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp vinegar
1 tsp brown sugar (dark is best but golden works, too)
3 heaping tbsp paprika - the good Hungarian kind!
2 tbsp vegan butter (or regular if you're ok with dairy)
2 tbsp sauerkraut, drained.
The rest of the cooked cabbage leaves, and the veins that were cut off,
diced or sliced to your liking
(and if you and your husband didn't snack on all of them!)
(and why waste that amazing cabbage?!)
Dump it all into a saucepan, stir gently to combine and let it simmer, covered, for 30-60 minutes - the longer the better to really marry those flavors.
Once they're done, CAREFULLY remove the weights with tongs, and carefully remove those gorgeous rolls from their spa. Ideally, use two tongs, one for each end of the roll, because they do like to unroll, or have one half fall back into the pot. As you can see above, some are still very nicely rolled and others are seriously mutilated. They still tasted good :)
Beautiful little cooked cabbage rolls.
Beautiful little saucy cabbage rolls.
All in all it was a great experience I am excited to try again! Looking forward to Moms feedback on if they at least a little bit resemble my Great-Grandmas.
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