For years my mother has made a special dish of cabbage rolls; while growing up I never liked the meal and always ended eating the stuffing rather than the cabbage. However, about ten years ago I developed a taste for the dish and started making it with an increasing frequency. Last night I was talking to Mum on the telephone and she told me she’s made cabbage rolls for her and my father; this made me hungry for the dish so I set about preparing it today. This time around I used ground pork instead of beef:

 

Cabbage Rolls 

1 medium-sized cabbage

1 C cooked rice

1 LB. ground pork

1 small onion, diced

2 cans tomato soup (Campbell's)

2 tsp. garlic powder

1 tsp. paprika

salt and pepper to taste

1 TBS. Romano cheese

 

Trim leaves off of the cabbage, and cut the core out of the bottom. Boil or steam the entire cabbage head in a large pot for about twenty minutes to a half-hour (just until the leaves are easy to pull off). Remove from heat and cool (I usually pull the leaves off and let them drain on paper towels). In a frying pan, brown the ground pork with the onion, garlic powder, paprika, salt and pepper (sometimes I add broken pieces of cabbage chopped up). Drain. Cook white rice according to package directions (I've found the best brand to be Uncle Ben's boil-in-a-bag rice. It takes about ten minutes). In a bowl, mix the two cans of tomato soup with one can of water until smooth. Add the pork and rice to the tomato soup mix (after reserving about ½ cup of the soup mix for topping the casserole at the end), and mix well. Take a leaf of cabbage, and spoon the meat-rice mixture down the center of the leaf, folding over and tucking in when done. Repeat with remaining leaves and meat-rice mixture. In a baking dish, layer the stuffed cabbage rolls evenly. Pour reserved ½ cup of tomato soup mix over the top of the cabbage rolls. Sprinkle Romano cheese on top of this. Bake covered in a 350° oven for about twenty minutes, or until hot.

 

This recipe appeared in its original form (including the beef) on the Entrees page at Shenanchie’s Kitchen. Thanks Mum!