Category: Meals

Cabbage Rolls with Kasha and Lentils

Ingredients:

Boil a cup or so or toasted buckwheat groats, or kasha,* in twice that much salted water for three minutes, then turn the heat down to the minimum and cover the pot tightly. Steam until all the water is absorbed, then let rest, away from the fire, without lifting the lid or stirring, until cool.
Sort, rinse and boil a cup or so of lentils in two cups of unsalted water until they are quite soft. Add water only if necessary. Pour into a strainer, and reserve the liquid. Allow to cool.
Mix the lentils and the kasha together gently. Pare, core and chop a large tart apple, like a Northern Spy or Cox's Orange Pippin, and add to the mixture. Add ground white pepper, salt, a pinch of ground coriander seed, and a tablespoonful of tahini, sesame paste.
Steam a small pale cabbage until its leaves are limp. Carefully separate the leaves. Dry them on a towel.
Starting at the inside stem end, fill and roll each leaf with a few spoonfuls of the stuffing mixture, folding in the ends and then rolling the rest of the way. Put the rolls seam down in a casserole pan (or two) just big enough to hold them all. Grate or process two onions and another tart apple. Add a jigger of vodka, the reserved liquid from the lentils, a spoonful of blackstrap molasses or sorghum syrup, and salt to taste. Pour this over the cabbage rolls. Bake, covered, in a moderate oven for half an hour, then baste the rolls with their braising liquid, and leave the cover off for a further quarter hour in the oven. The tops should brown somewhat. Baste once more during this period if the rolls seem to be drying out.
Sprinkle with chopped parsley to serve, either hot or cold, with root vegetables dressed in oil and cider vinegar, or a tart salad of winter endive.

Notes:

Recipe Index

More Meals:

Polenta Bombe |  Black Bean Buns  | Cool Dumplings in Hot Sauce | One Pot Hot | Black Bean Pie |  Straight from the Pot | Homely Ravioli  | Lima Bean Stew  | Timbale of Lentils and Rice | Doublable Beans | Panisse Euclid |