HOLUPCHI RECIPES

Steps:

• For the sauce:.
• Take your onion and with a knife make 5-7 slits (depending on how many cloves you are using). Insert your cloves into the slits.
• Finely chop your garlic and dill.
• Sweat off your garlic and your whole onion for about a minute, flipping the onion once.
• Add the remaining ingredients for the sauce, bring to a boil and reduce to simmer for about 30 minutes.
• Taste your sauce, if it needs more of anything, add it. I find sometimes I need more sugar, sometimes more vinegar.
• For the rolls:.
• Preheat oven to 350.
• Cook your rice as you normally would (for 1 1/2 cups of rice, I would normally use about 3 cups water). Once cooked, put it in a large bowl to cool.
• Core your cabbage. Reserve two outer leaves and shred. Finely chop your dill.
• Bring a large pot of water and the cabbage to a boil. As the cabbage cooks, remove the leaves that separate (with tongs) and set aside. Depending on the size of your cabbage, you'll want 20-30 leaves. (the leftover cabbage will freeze well too).
• Meanwhile, add the ground veal, dill, shredded reserved cabbage, salt and pepper to the rice and mix well with your hands.
• Take a 1/2 cup of the tomato sauce and add it to the rice mixture. Mix again and check the consistency. You can choose to add up to another 1/2 cup of the tomato sauce, this is a personal choice.
• Line the bottom of a roast pan with 2-3 leaves, so that the bottom is covered. Ladle a small amount of the sauce on the bottom of the pan.
• Take the cabbage leaves you've removed and remove the cores. If your leaves are big you may also want to cut them in half.
• Grab some of the rice mixture, about I'm guessing a 1/4 cup or about the size of a golf ball (this again depends of the size of your leaves), and shape it into a finger. Put it in the cabbage and roll the cabbage, folding the ends in, and lay in the roast pan seam side down.
• Repeat until you have filled the bottom of the pan and ladle about 1/2 cup of the sauce over the rolls. Repeat until you run out of the stuffing.
• Take the remaining sauce and pour it all over the rolls. Cover and bake for about 30-45 minutes, until your meat is cooked.

Steps:

• Place the cabbage in a stockpot with enough water to cover.
• Add 1/4 teaspoon salt to the water and cabbage.
• Bring water to a boil over medium-high heat. Turn cabbage every 2-3 minutes and remove leaves that separate from cabbage and place in a strainer to cool. Boil until all the leaves have cooked, about 15 minutes.
• Reserve 12 oz. of cabbage water.
• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
• Trim thick center vein off of bottom of each cabbage leaf.
• In a large bowl thoroughly mix together, ground beef, ground pork, rice, chopped onion, fresh parsley, egg, garlic powder, salt, and pepper.
• Lightly pack a small amount of meat mixture and place in the center of the cabbage leaf.
• Fold sides over the filling and start at the stem and roll the cabbage up until the meat is encased. Repeat with remaining leaves and filling.
• Cut the leftover leaves into pieces and place into the bottom of a roasting pan.
• Layer the stuffed cabbage rolls over the cut leaves.
• In a bowl, mix the tomato sauce, reserved cabbage water, white vinegar, and white sugar.
• Pour the tomato sauce mixture over the cabbage rolls.
• Cover roasting pan with aluminum foil.
• Bake in preheated oven until the ground beef mixture is no longer pink in the center, about 2 1/2 hours. Baste stuffed cabbage rolls every hour.