National Cabbage day is a day to celebrate a delicious vegetable that crosses cultural and culinary lines. Many people think of cabbage as being a distinctly Irish vegetable, but the Irish actually got it from Asia around 600 BCE. It’s one of the easiest vegetables to grow, growing wild and very cool climates and resulting in large harvests. It also store extremely well during the winter.
Types of Cabbage
Many people would be surprised to realize that there are several different types of vegetables in the Cabbage family. We’re talking about broccoli Kohlrabi, cauliflower, and brussel sprouts. All of these delicious vegetables owe their linked heritage to the cabbage.
Interesting Information About Cabbage
• Cabbage only takes three months to grow, making it an exceptionally use food in areas where crops need to be turned over quickly.
• Cabbage is the national food of Russia, the citizens there eating as much as seven times as much cabbage in a year as an American.
• Raw, green cabbage is extremely high in a nutrient glutamine, an amino acid that is used to help keep the intestines in optimal health. Red cabbage on the other hand filled with flavonoids, antioxidants that help protect your body from major illnesses.
Cabbage Recipe
Cabbage is such an incredible, versatile vegetable that can be cooked in so many amazing ways. You can sauté it with butter, roasted olive oil and sea salt, layer it into your favorite casseroles or use it to provide incredible crunch to a salad. There are tons of recipes online, and any one of them can help you ring in a very special National Cabbage Day.
Delicious Golabki Recipe
Golabki is the name of an exquisite Polish dish featuring stuffed cabbage leaves. Polish people usually prepare and serve them on special holidays like Christmas or at special celebrations like weddings. They’re so delicious, they basically eat them at any time, especially on National Cabbage Day.
Golabki : Stuffed Cabbage
Ingredients
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 head cabbage (cabbage should be cored)
• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 large chopped onion
• ½-pound ground pork
• 1 ½ cups cooked rice
• 1 teaspoon garlic, finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon salt, extra to taste
• ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper, extra to taste
• “3” 10.75-ounce cans of tomato juice, extra to taste
• ½ cup ketchup
Directions
1) Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees F.
2) Get a large pot, and fill it with water. Lightly salt the water, and place the pot on the stove. Bring the whole thing to a boil. Take your cabbage head, and place it into the boiling water. Cover the pot, and cook the cabbage for about three minutes until the leaves are soft enough to easily remove them from the head. Take the cabbage out of the pot, and let it sit for about 10 minutes until it’s cool enough for the leaves to be removed.
3) Carefully and gently remove about 18 leaves from the head, getting rid of the hard bits of center ribs. Put the freshly removed leaves onto a plate, and chop up the rest of the cabbage into small pieces and lay them carefully into the bottom of a casserole dish.
4) Take a skillet, and place it on the stove over medium-high heat. Heat up some butter. When it’s hot, toss in your onion, cooking it for about five to ten minutes or so until it’s nice and tender. Let the onion cool for anywhere between five and 10 minutes.
5) Get a large bowl, and add in the cooked onion, garlic, beef, pork, teaspoon of salt, ¼-teaspoon of pepper and rice. Stir everything together until it’s well mixed.
6) Take about ½-cup of the beef mixture and spread it onto a cabbage leaf. Roll the cabbage leaf around the beef mixture. You’re trying to create an envelope around the meat, so tuck in the sides into an envelope shape. Repeat with the rest of the cabbage and meat. Once done, take your cabbage rolls and put them in a layer on top of the layer of the chopped cabbage that you’d placed in the casserole dish. Sprinkle the tops of the rolls with salt and pepper
7) Get a bowl, and toss in the tomato soup, ketchup and tomato juice. Whisk it all together.
8) Take this tomato mixture, and pour it over cabbage rolls that you created. Once done, cover the dish with aluminum foil.
