Russian cuisine: Golubtsy

Golubtsy stands for meat wrapped in a cabbage leaf and then stewed. So, the most important thing here is to get the leaves off the cabbage head safely and carefully. For this, take a big meat fork and punch the stump. Then put the whole thing into boiling water. As the top leaves cook (it’s easy to see, they become transparent), cut them carefully at the base and slowly remove from the head. Set them aside to cool a bit.

Now the stuffing. Take some ground meat (actually, it tastes better if you make a mixture of 85% of beef and 15% of pork fat) and mix it with raw rice – you’ll need twice as much meat than rice.

On a separate frying pan you’ll need to fry grated carrots and finely chopped onions, then add finely chopped tomatoes. Add this mix to the meat and also put in crushed garlic, herbs, salt, and ground peppers. Mix well and start wrapping this stuffing into cabbage leaves. Lay them tightly side by side in a wide thick-walled saucepan, pour some hot water over, add a piece of butter (hey, this small piece doesn’t count!! More!!) and let it cook for 40 minutes on a medium fire.