Happy Friday:)

A couple of weeks ago I experimented with cooking cabbage rolls filled with tuna fish 🙂 I love cabbage rolls, my mum used to make some with sour cabbage, minced meat, and later vegetarian variant. I was wondering how they will taste made with fresh cabbage and chose to use it for the one I was about to cook. And it is easier to find fresh cabbage than sour 🙂 Being pesco vegetarian for quite a time decided to use tuna fish instead of minced meat.
Well, I spend quite some time cooking, which I usually don’t, but the result was very tasty. I am glad I cook them and will definitely add them to my menu more often.

Servings: 15-17/ Prep. Time: 40- 50 min/ Cooking time 30 min.

How to:

Preparing the cabbage:

Method 1:

1. Clean the cabbage from some of the upper leaves and place it in a deep enough pot.
2. Fill the pot with water to cover the cabbage.
3. Place on medium heat and boil for about 10-15 min.
4. You don’t need to fully boil the cabbage, the leaves need to be tender and flexible.
5. Take it aside to cool for a while before taking the leaves apart.

Method 2:

1. After cleaning the cabbage from the top leaves, start cutting each leave from the stem.
2. Depending on the cabbage size, you may end up with abt 20- 25 leaves.
3. Take about 15-18 of the leaves.
4. In a deep pot, place water and bring to boil.
5. Place about 7-9 leaves and blanch for 3-5 minutes.
6. Repeat until you are out of leaves.
7. You should receive tender and flexible leaves.

Note: If your cooking top allows you can place all of the cabbage leaves, and blanch them all together.

For the filling:

1. Cut onion, carrots, and bell pepper into cubes.
2. In a pre-heated pan with the olive oil, place the veggies and stir for a few minutes.
3. Rinse the rice and add it to the veggie mix.
4. Mix well and stir for a while to avoid sticking to the bottom.
5. Add 100ml water and leave until the rice has absorbed it all. The rice wouldn’t coo fully now, but later, when you boil all of the rolls.
6. Add tuna fish and mix well
7. Add the spices and mix well.
8. Leave aside to cool for a few min.

Folding the rolls:

1. Using a parking knife (or a cooking scissor), cut the hard rib from the cabbage leaves.
2. Place about 1 tbsp/ 1.5 tbsp. of the filling into one end of the leave.
3. Start folding, taking the left or right corner of the leave and placing it over to the other side, and repeat with the opposite side until it has been folded fully. Tuck the sides while folding.
4. Place the roll seams side down in a deep top.
5. Repeat until all cabbage leaves are finished.
6. Depending on how many you have prepared, you would have 2 – 3 rows of the rolls.
7. Cover the roll with enough water -it should be a few inches above the last row.
8. Place 1 or 2 plates above the rolls, this way they are not going to move around.
9. Boil for about 30 -40 minutes. (This is when the rice will fully cook.)
10. After boiling out the water.
11. Leave to cool for a couple of minutes
12. Serve and enjoy.

More Photos:

Preparation time:

Enjoy 🙂