Golabki (Dan's fave Polish dish)
Ok, here are the Golabki like I made them. I found the original recipe a bit boring so I spiced it up a little with some onion, garlic and red bell pepper. When I told this to Chitown he said that it sounded like a recipe from Warsaw and that the colors of the white sauce and the red bell pepper reminded him of the Polish flag ;) He said I couldn't have done better if I tried! He did say I could have put in more garlic but that's personal, and hey, you have to make every recipe your own right? Oh and you know what he also said? "We'll make a Polack outta you yet!" Was that a compliment ot a threat??? ;)For the cabbage rolls:
- 1 pound/lb of ground pork (if not available in Holland: use half&half)
- 250 gr./ 1 cup of rice, uncooked
- 1 onion
- 3 cloves of garlic
- 1 red bell pepper/ paprika
- 1 tablespoon of butter
- 1 cabbage
- salt, pepper, Vegeta/Aromat to taste
- 1/2 pound/lb of white button mushrooms/champignons
- 1/2 liter/2 cups of water
- 1 tablespoon of butter
- 1 cube of mushroom broth
- some Worchestershire sauce
- 2-3 tablespoons of flour
- a nice dollup of crème fraîche or sour cream
- some chopped parsley
Remove the core of the cabbage, this will make the peeling easier later. Put the cabbage in a big pan with boiling water and salt, bring to a boil and let it simmer for 10 minutes. Take the cabbage out to cool off a bit, remove the leaves and drain.
Cook the rice for about 10 minutes, if you have the fast cooking rice: 3-4 minutes. Chop the garlic, onion and bell pepper into little pieces and softly fry them in the butter, no browning though! Let the rice and onion/pepper mixture cool off.
Mix the ground meat with the semi-cooked rice, onion/pepper mix and add salt, pepper and Vegeta/Aromat to taste. Take some of the mixture in a spoon and place it in the middle of one of the cabbage leaves. Fold it in all nicely and put it seams down in a big ovenproof dish. Repeat this until either the cabbage or the mixture is finished ;) I got 12 rolls out of it. Cover with the outer (ugly) cabbage leaves and with the water you cooked the cabbage in, and finish covering with foil. Put in a preheated oven at 200C/400F for about 90 minutes.
The sauce:
Slice the mushrooms, melt the butter in a frying pan and add the mushroomslices. Put almost all the water to a boil and add the mushroom broth cube. Add the flour to the rest of the water, mix well! Add this mix gradually to the broth and let it thicken. Put the mushrooms in, a bit of Worchestershire sauce and the chopped parsley. Finish with a nice dollup of crème fraîche. If you can't get it, no problem, just put a dollup on top of the finished dish just before serving.
So now put 2 or 3 Golabki on a plate, pour some of the sauce over it (and some sour cream :p) and totally ENJOY!
Have to warn you though: this is NOT a dish you wanna make after you get home from a busy day at work! It takes some time and your kitchen will get messy but I swear: it's totally worth it!
New recipe!! Honey-mustard sauce (to serve warm with pork or chicken.)
Ingredients:
- 3 tablespoons of honey
- 3 tablespoons of mustard
- 1 tub of crème fraîche or double cream
- salt and pepper to taste
