German Cabbage Rolls

My sister wanted to make this recipe, our family hadn't made it for years, and we were warned by our sister-in-law, that it was lots of work to make. I think the hardest part is making the rolls, wrapping the meat mixture in the cabbage leaves is an art. My sister for sure had problems, and ended up with rolls that had lots of toothpicks in them, then I took a crack at it. I stumbled on the technique right away, which seemed to work fairly well, perhaps my sister-in-law didn't like this recipe because she didn't know how to properly wrap the rolls, mused my sister. I'll try to describe the technique as best I can. I took two of the cabbage leaves, removing the edge where it was attached to the core, that seems to be quite hard and difficult to bend. Then I overlapped the two leaves with the round ends in the middle (the end you would begin to peel off). I then placed a handful of the meat-rice mixture in the middle of the overlapped leaves, then wrapped it like a package, first the top and bottom, then the left and right sides. Wrap this with kitchen twine or pin it with steel pins or toothpicks. We decided to use ground turkey rather than the beef-pork mixture, it turned out quite tasty. You could probably use ground chicken, or lamb even.

German Cabbage Rolls
1 whole green cabbage head
200 g ground beef
125 g ground pork
1 medium onion, diced
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup uncooked rice
1/2 cup water
oil for frying

Place whole cabbage head in simmering water for 5 minutes. Let cool for a moment, then peel off leaves. You may have to repeat this one or two times more.

Mix together ground meat, onion, salt, pepper, rice and water.

Place 2-3 cabbage leaves overlapping, then place a handful of meat-rice mixture on the leaves. Wrap the leaves in a package; secure with kitchen twine or with steel pins.

Fry cabbage rolls in oil for several minutes until browned on both sides.

Stack all cabbage rolls in pressure cooker with chicken or vegetable stock or water and cook for 30 minutes. Make gravy from left-over stock and pour over cabbage rolls.