Rootitoot Cabbage Rolls
Grandma-style cabbage rolls from The Rootitoot Cookbook (A Grandma's Recipes for Your Instant Pot). An old-country trick of freezing the whole cabbage overnight softens the leaves for rolling. The raisins in the sauce lend a deep, complex flavour.
🍳 Cook: 20 min
Ingredients
| 1 | large cabbage | |
| 6 | garlic cloves, minced | |
| 3 | onions (1/2 cup grated, the rest diced) | |
| 1 | egg | |
| 1 tsp | 5 ml | salt |
| 0.5 tsp | 2.5 ml | pepper |
| 0.5 tsp | 2.5 ml | dried thyme |
| 0.25 cup | 60 ml | breadcrumbs |
| 1.5 cups | 360 ml | cooked rice (optional) |
| 2 lbs | 905 g | lean ground beef (or beef and pork) |
| 4 cups | 960 ml | tomato juice (preferably Heinz) |
| 6 oz | 170 g | tomato paste |
| 0.5 cup | 120 ml | red wine (optional) |
| 3 Tbsp | 45 ml | vinegar (any kind - balsamic works) |
| 3 Tbsp | 45 ml | brown sugar |
| — | salt and pepper to taste | |
| 0.33 cup | 79 ml | raisins |
Instructions
Prep
The night before: Wash and remove the core and any damaged leaves from the cabbage and freeze it whole overnight in a plastic bag. This is an old country trick for softening the cabbage for rolling. Much easier than boiling or blanching it.
Next day: Peel and mince the garlic. Grate about 1/2 cup of onion and dice the rest. Separate the cabbage leaves.
Make the filling
- Stir together the grated onion, 2 tsp of the minced garlic, the egg, salt, pepper, thyme and breadcrumbs. Add the cooked rice, if using, and the ground meat. Gently mix by hand.
Make the sauce
- In the Instant Pot, whisk the tomato juice, tomato paste, wine (if using), vinegar and sugar. Add salt and pepper and taste the sauce. Add more vinegar or sugar depending on how sweet or tangy you like it.
- Add the raisins... even if you don't like raisins. They lend a deep, complex flavour to the sauce. Add the diced onion and the rest of the garlic and hit Sauté to heat the sauce while you make the cabbage rolls. Stir it occasionally.
Under construction
- Put about 1/4 - 1/3 cup of the meat mixture at the base of each cabbage leaf and roll it up, tucking in the sides as you go. Stack the finished rolls on a plate as you go. (Are you stirring the sauce now and then? Good for you.)
- When the sauce is boiling, press Cancel and gently submerge each cabbage roll in the sauce. Close the pot and make sure the valve is set to Sealing. Push Pressure Cook (or Manual) and use the +/- buttons to get to 20 minutes.
- When it beeps that it's done, leave it for a 15-minute natural release. Then flip the valve to Venting and when the pin drops, open the pot and smell the aroma of the old country. You made cabbage rolls like Grandma used to make. Somebody's grandma anyway, even if yours didn't.