Cabbage rolls with meat and rice

Cabbage rolls with meat and rice - a wonderful universal dish that can be prepared for lunch on an ordinary day, and it will also be a great addition to the festive menu.

Ingredients

• cabbage head - 1 pc;
• pork minced meat - 500 g;
• rice - ½ cup;
• carrot - 1 pc. (large);
• onion - 1 pc;
• tomato paste - 1 tbsp. (heaped);
• tomato juice - 1 cup;
• ground pepper;
• salt;
• vegetable oil.

Cooking

1. The cabbage for the cabbage rolls should have thin leaves, because thick cabbage leaves, even after steaming, are not as flexible as thin ones. However, even thin cabbage leaves need to be steamed before being used in the preparation of this dish. There are several methods for softening cabbage leaves. One of them is to partially boil the leaves directly on the cabbage head. For this, we select a wide pot, heat water in it. We dip the head into boiling water. When the top leaves of the head become warm enough and elastic, we cut them off the stalk. We take these cabbage leaves out of the water and place them on a plate to cool. Then we cut off the subsequent softened cabbage leaves. This way we prepare the necessary number of leaves. The remaining cabbage can then be used for preparing other dishes (for example, this cabbage can be stewed with vegetables).

2. While we are softening the cabbage leaves in boiling water, we start to boil the rice. We take a slightly less than full cup of whole rice (not broken). We cook it in water at a ratio of 1:1. When the rice absorbs all the water, we turn off the heat. We place the rice on a plate to cool before mixing it with the other ingredients.

3. Homemade cabbage rolls turn out especially tasty from pork minced meat. We buy minced meat that is not too fatty.

4. We mix the minced meat with cold boiled rice.

5. We prepare the vegetable dressing for the stuffing of the cabbage rolls. We sauté finely chopped onion.

6. The carrot for the sauce can be grated in a food processor or on a regular grater.

7. Next, we sauté the onion together with the carrot. We sauté it, as it is not necessary to fry the vegetables too much. Our task is for the vegetables to acquire an appetizing aroma.

8. We remove the finished vegetables from the heat. We set aside a few spoons of the sauté (we will add it to the sauce later).

9. We pour the remaining sauté into the meat filling for the cabbage rolls.

10. We add salt and pepper to the prepared filling for the cabbage rolls.

11. Now we wrap the cabbage rolls. On each boiled cabbage leaf, we place a full 1 tbsp. of filling.

12. We now fold the cabbage leaves into envelopes.

13. We place the cabbage envelopes seam side down.

14. We fry the blanks in refined sunflower oil. In the lightly browned cabbage shell, our cabbage rolls will become especially tasty and aromatic.

15. Now we take the set aside sauté and layer it with the cabbage rolls in the pot.

16. In this way, tightly layering the cabbage rolls in the pot, we sprinkle them with the sautéed carrot and onion, cooked in vegetable oil.

17. We prepare the sauce for the cabbage rolls. We take homemade tomato juice. We add tomato paste according to the recipe, diluted with water to the consistency of tomato juice.

18. We pour the sauce into the pot with the cabbage rolls so that the cabbage rolls are completely submerged in the liquid. Then we stew the cabbage rolls on low heat for 40 minutes. We turn off the heat and let sit for 5-10 minutes.

19. We serve the cabbage rolls hot. If desired, we serve homemade sour cream with them.

Cook homemade cabbage rolls using our recipe. Bon appetit.