When I was a child I hated cabbage. Maybe it was the way my mum cooked it but it always seemed watery and tasteless. And soggy! Later in life I came to appreciate that cooking cabbage that way ruined all the vitamins anyway, so why eat it?
There are many varieties of cabbage around and I now think they're all delicious if cooked properly. This recipe uses dark green spring cabbage. It's full of B vitamins, iron and folic acid. Very good for you!
I call this dish “Cabbage Wraps”. The quantities given are for two people but it's just as easy to make more.
Ingredients
- Three good sized cabbage leaves per person taken from a head of spring cabbage - sometimes called spring greens. Wash well and cut off any thick stems.
- 2 cups of basmati rice
- 4 ozs of very lean steak mince OR Soya mince
- 1 medium sized onion, finely chopped
- 4 large cup mushrooms, roughly sliced
- Salt and black pepper to taste
- ¼ pint of good chicken OR vegetable stock
- Jar of your favourite tomato based pasta sauce
- 2 ozs grated cheddar cheese - this is optional. Leave it out if you don't like cheese, or are watching the calories.
Directions
- Boil the rice in plenty of salted water until soft and fluffy. A good way to avoid sticky rice is to rinse it well with boiling water once you've drained it. Simply leave the rice in the colander and pour over lots of boiling water. I boil a kettle full and use that.
- While the rice is cooking, gently fry the mince, onion and mushrooms in a little olive oil. Keep the heat low and let the mixture cook very gently until the onion is soft but not browned.
- Transfer the rice and the mince, onion and mushrooms to a large mixing bowl and mix thoroughly. Add salt and black pepper.
- Lay each cabbage leaf in turn flat on a clean surface and spoon some of the rice/mince mixture into the middle of the leaf. Leave enough cabbage leaf exposed for wrapping.
- Roll up the cabbage leaf lengthwise first, then fold over each end to make a kind of parcel
- Place each parcel with the folded up side down into a large oven-proof casserole dish with a lid. You may need to stack them on top of each other, but that's OK.
- In a jug or a pan, dilute the pasta sauce with the stock, then pour over the cabbage wraps
- Place the lid on the casserole dish and bake in the oven for 30 minutes at 140 degrees Celsius
- Remove the lid and sprinkle liberally with grated cheddar cheese. Place under grill until cheese has melted.
- Serve immediately. This is a complete meal in itself so you don't need to serve it with anything else.
