This year’s Passover seders (yes, I realize I’m writing this after Passover) was just my beau and myself – even V was already in bed – but I still wanted them to feel special with family recipes. I didn’t want to repeat the identical meal two nights in a row so I did brisket for night 1 and stuffed cabbage for night 2. Stuffed cabbage is something my Grandma always made for the holidays but that I was too intimidated to recreate. Because I was making it for Passover, I nixed the rice and breadcrumbs and used only ground beef to account for any Kosher for Passover restrictions. I used this recipe as my starting point but changed up some things. Basically, use your favorite meatball recipe and have a ball. In this case, when deciding what to mix into my meat, I used the overall passover meal as inspiration. That means the parsley that’s on the seder plate and the wine that was used to make the charoset both went in. It had great flavor that Finn really enjoyed as a plain meatball sans cabbage the next day.
Cut the bottom off a head of cabbage and then place that whole head in boiling water. Boil it for about 2 minutes before removing the head (don’t turn off the water) and peel off as many of the leaves that are soft enough. Replace the head of cabbage in the boiling water and repeat until all the leaves are removed. Use a knife to pare down any tough stems from the softened leaves (so you can easily roll them later). In a large bowl, combine 1 lb ground beef with 1/4 cup of broth, 2-3 cloves minced garlic, 1/2 tsp sugar, 1/2 a finely chopped onion, a handful of chopped parsley, a splash or two of whatever red wine you have open, and salt and pepper. Crush up 3/4 of a piece of matzah and add to the meat along with 1 egg. Combine with your hands. Separately, whisk together 1 can tomato sauce, 1 can tomato soup, 1 tsp paprika, a few dashes of garlic powder, and 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce. (See following paragraph for the one extra ingredient I’d probably add next time.) Place a scoop of the meat mixture in the middle of each cabbage leaf and roll them up like little burritos. Lay them, seam side down, in a slow cooker (it’s ok if there are two layers) and pour the sauce over the top. Cook on low 7-9 hours high for 4-5 hours.
I always thought this was a super labor intensive dish, but really it was quite easy. The only thing that takes a bit of time is boiling the cabbage leaves because only a few get soft at a time. Using a crock pot means you don’t have to watch them and the texture comes out just the same. The only change I would make would be to add some tomato paste to make the sauce just a bit thicker. My Grandma does a sweeter sauce and if that’s your vibe, add some brown sugar. We lean savory in this house. It may not have tasted exactly like my Grandma’s, but she was definitely the inspiration and I think it’s going to need to remain on the seder menu moving forward.
Peaches to Apples 