(Exciting) Stuffed Cabbage

Cabbage. Most people wrinkle their noses, make a face, avoid it at all costs. I can understand that. Until recently, the only way I'd eat cabbage was my Grama's cabbage rolls, dutifully devoured at special occasion family meals. They were delicious - some kind of exception to the rule. However, sometime in the last year I've figured out that I like cabbage and have started going out of my way to eat more of it. It's filling, it's cheap, and it keeps practically forever in the fridge. What's not to love?

When I first started flipping through Plenty, I noticed there was an entire chapter titled "Brassicas". I actually got excited, which must be some kind of sign that I am growing up. The recipe that I made tonight was called simply "Stuffed Cabbage"... which is exactly what it is, I suppose. But I figured if I posted a recipe called "Stuffed Cabbage" people might think to themselves "Oh cabbage, that is so bland... let's not bother". Which would be sad. Because this stuffed cabbage is DELICIOUS.

Prepping the cabbage is a little fussy, but aside from that the recipe is very straightforward and really, really tasty. Even if you don't want to mess around with the cabbage, make the filling just once to try it. Totally worth it. Now, to stop sounding so excited and get on with the recipe... As usual, ingredient list and proportions are as stated in the book and the instructions include my observations and alterations.

Stuffed Cabbage 
(p. 95, Plenty)

Serves 4 (according to the book; I think this could very comfortably serve five or even six)

2 tbsp unsalted butter
1 1/2 oz vermicelli noodles (not the rice variety)
7/8 cup basmati rice
1 1/4 cup water
salt
1 medium white cabbage
1/3 cup pine nuts, toasted and roughly chopped
3/4 cup ricotta
1/4 cup Parmesan
3 tbsp chopped mint
4 tbsp chopped parsley, plus extra to finish
3 garlic cloves, crushed
black pepper
1 cup dry white wine
6 tbsp vegetable stock
1 1/2 tbsp sugar
4 tbsp olive oil

Assemble ingredients!

So a few substitutions to start: I used thin spaghetti in place of the non-rice vermicelli. There is no reason in the book as to why to not use rice vermicelli, and no suggested preference for non-rice vermicelli (mung bean or sweet potato, for example?), so I went with the only other non-rice fine noodle I had in the flat. Having made the recipe, I can now say that I think it should be doable with rice vermicelli and can't quite figure out why the alteration... Wish there had been a bit of an explanation. Anyway, back on point here. I also used regular green cabbage because it was available and as usual subbed out the pine nuts for chopped, toasted pecans because I had them on hand. A quick note about cooking with wine - go ahead and buy a cheaper bottle, but buy something you'd at least drink straight. I say this because the point of most liquids in a recipe is to reduce, which concentrates their flavours. If your wine is not terribly palatable, concentrating it will not help the dish any. Besides, then you can have an enjoyable rather than endurable glass while you are cooking. ^_~

Gather the butter, rice, noodles, water and salt together. The next few stages go pretty quickly, so having this part prepped in advance is to your advantage here.

I put the required salt in with the rice so I wouldn't forget it.

To start, melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat.

When the butter is melted, break the vermicelli into 3/4-inch long lengths and add them to the pan. Mine weren't quite that small, but bite-size is a good goal.

Stir fry the noodles for 1 to 2 minutes. Yotam cautions here that the noodles can burn very quickly at this stage... I didn't have any problems, but I wonder what noodles he was using and whether or not that changes things. Anyway, as soon as the noodles start turning golden (or the butter foam starts subsiding) add the rice and the salt and stir well.

Then add the water and bring everything to a boil by turning the heat up. Once everything is boiling, turn the heat down to minimum, cover and cook for 20 minutes. Remove from heat after 20 minutes and let stand 10 minutes before removing the lid and letting things cool off for a while.

While the rice is cooking, prepare the cabbage. There are two ways of doing this. The first involves cutting the cabbage in half vertically, peeling off the leaves and blanching them in boiling water for 6-8 minutes or until they are mostly tender. If you have a big cabbage, this may take a few batches. Alternatively, you can trim the base off of your cabbage and submerge it in a pot of boiling water and peel off the outside leaves as they cook. I ended up using a hybrid method of sorts. I cut off the base of the cabbage, let it sit in the boiling water until the leaves were soft enough to peel back and then pulled them off and let them stay in the boiling water until they were tender. After the first 6 or 8 leaves, I had to start cutting them off of the bottom of the cabbage, which felt a bit like being a mad scientist. Not to overstate the obvious, but with either of these methods be careful. Boiling water isn't a terribly friendly substance.

Once you have as many cabbage leaves as you think you will need, rinse the leaves under cool water and pat dry with a lint free dishtowel or paper towel. Hindsight tells me you'll want roughly 12 good-sized cabbage leaves, and perhaps a few extras just in case my idea of filling-to-cabbage proportions are different than yours. Also, as I was grabbing a measuring cup from my cupboard, I discovered someone had stamped a message on the inside of my cabinet:

It made me laugh.

Preheat the oven to 350F, and pull out a 9"x13" (or some variant on large) oven-proof baking pan. In a large bowl, add the cooked rice mixture, the nuts, the ricotta, half the Parmesan, the herbs, the garlic (I chopped mine instead of crushing it), and salt and pepper to taste.

Mix everything together really well with a fork. Tasting the filling for seasoning at this point really surprised me in a very pleasant way - this filling is fantastic! I found myself thinking of it as a potential base for arancini, but that would be a project for another day.

Use the cooked cabbage leaves to create parcels of whatever size works for you - I found a ratio of one cabbage leaf to two or three generous fork-fulls of filling worked well. I rolled mine like a burrito (flip up the bottom, flip in the sides and roll all the way up), but you can even roll them like paper tubes and leave the side- ends open, according to Yotam.

Place each parcel seam-side down in the baking pan and cozy them in together. If you have gaps in your pan, Yotam recommends filling them in with cabbage trimmings. I didn't end up with any gaps.

In a separate container whisk together the wine, stock, sugar, olive oil and generous pinches of salt and pepper.

Pour this over the cabbage parcels and bake at 350F for ~40 minutes or until almost all of the liquid is gone. Sprinkle the parcels with the remaining Parmesan cheese and return to the oven for another 10 minutes or until the cheese melts and turns golden. Remove from the oven and let rest for 5 minutes before serving.

I had no idea what I would think of this recipe when I started making it, but like I said earlier, it really surprised me in a great way. I would definitely make this again. And I think I'd recommend it to people who say that they really hate cabbage. The cabbage in this dish was tender and a tiny bit sweet and almost a bit fruity from the wine and the olive oil, which contrasted nicely with the dairy and herb notes of the rice and noodle filling. As a bonus, the filling is good warm or at room temperature which means it's going to be fantastic as lunch tomorrow.