tough luck, tough cabbage

April 27, 2022 7:51 AM

Every time I make stuffed cabbage the cabbage leaf wrapper is too tough. What's your secret to tender stuffed cabbage?

I've tried all two of my grandmother's three recipe notes for par cooking the cabbage leaves -- boil for 10 minutes, then remove the other leaves or freeze, then thaw and remove the leaves. I haven't used her other trick for microwaving it since I don't have a microwave. Most recently, I boiled the head, removed leaves, then boiled the remaining head again to remove some more. Some of the leaves were so tend they tore, but some were a bit firmer. The batch I cooked straight away was still tough. The batch I cooked, then froze, thawed, and cooked some more was still tough. What am I doing wrong with my cabbage? What should I look for when par cooking?

I'm using a recipe from my Polish grandmother. The stuffing is beef/lamb (she used beef & pork but I don't eat pork), rice, sautéed onions, egg; the sauce is a sweet and sour tomato sauce. I rest the stuffed cabbages on a bed of sliced onions and the remaining sliced cabbage.

posted by carrioncomfort to Food & Drink (21 answers total)

Best answer: I know nothing about boiled cabbage and have never made stuffed cabbage, but perhaps you might consider steaming? Steamed whole cabbage leaves, if you steam them a lot longer than you'd want if you were eating them alone (20-25 minutes), are really flexible and will be unbroken. A steamer basket to put in a pot is 3 USD if you don't have one already. I suspect this would not be traditional, but it might work. (I'm tempted to try this recipe. How do you cook the stuffing?)
posted by eotvos at 8:04 AM on April 27, 2022

Best answer: It sounds like you are boiling the whole head? I have always taken the cabbage apart to leaves, and then blanched them in very salty water for 3 minutes or so in batches (then removed to ice water). Doing small batches keeps a rolling boil and it works a treat.
posted by janell at 8:20 AM on April 27, 2022 [13 favorites]

Best answer: Agreed on boiling the individual leaves. I think modern varietals of cabbage are packed so densely that it’s very hard to cook a single head evenly in water.
posted by corey flood at 8:27 AM on April 27, 2022

Best answer: What kind of cabbage are you using? I’m not Polish and I don’t make cabbage rolls, but I come from another Eastern European country and my mom says that the green cabbage widely available here in Canada is a different kind than the one back home and that it is too tough for cabbage rolls. I believe she prefers Taiwanese flat cabbage/flat cabbage because it has finer leaves. So perhaps it’s a matter of trying different kinds of cabbage and seeing which works best for the recipe.
posted by piamater at 8:35 AM on April 27, 2022 [6 favorites]

Best answer: I agree that many modern cabbage varieties are selected to be very dense because many of them are intended for processing (e.g. bagged slaw), but there are also ones intended to have tender (or more tender) leaves. You might also try a pointed cabbage like Caraflex if you can find it (farmers markets) and see what you think.
posted by sevenless at 8:38 AM on April 27, 2022 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Some people use those pre-soured sour cabbage rolls that you can buy. Or Savoy cabbage, which has that odd veiny texture but which spreads out when it's boiled.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:40 AM on April 27, 2022 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Are you cutting the stem out of the center of the leaf. They can be tough and might take longer to cook when boiling.
posted by tman99 at 8:52 AM on April 27, 2022 [5 favorites]

Best answer: I use Savoy if possible. I’ve also tried using huge Nappa cabbage for my Hungarian style cabbage rolls and it worked better than standard green cabbage but the prominence of the center stalk meant I had to figure out how to roll them differently.

How are you cooking them once assembled? My great grandma’s “recipe” (no measurements, no times, merely suggestions!) involves packing a Dutch oven to the gills with layered rolls with shredded cabbage hearts and onions between each layer, and filling in all the gaps with the sweet and sour tomato sauce, and simmering it on low for ever and ever. It’s basically a stew and the cabbage is never left to dry out at all. If you are just baking yours in a single layer uncovered then it’s probably something about the cabbage being dry at some point. Try increasing the sauce and covering the dish with a lid or foil for all of its cook time.
posted by Mizu at 8:57 AM on April 27, 2022 [4 favorites]

Best answer: We've started using the instant pot to steam the whole head. Works amazingly well. Prior to that, we would freeze the whole head of cabbage, then thaw and boil it (to wilt it a bit before boiling). Have you tried freezing and thawing as step 1, instead of cooking then freezing?

Are you cutting the cores out of each individual leaf? We steam the whole head of cabbage, then as we peel off a leaf to make a roll, we cut out the triangular bit of core. Otherwise that section is indeed very tough.
posted by assenav at 8:57 AM on April 27, 2022

Best answer: After you stuff and roll the cabbage, how long are you baking it in the oven? And at what temperature? That might be the piece you're missing.

The way I was taught to prepare the cabbage leaves was to core the cabbage and then put the cabbage core-side down in the boiling water in order to loosen the leaves and make them easier to pull apart. As the leaves peel away, you do have to leave them in the boiling water for a minute or two to soften them up before removing them.

And yes, the cabbage is absolutely part of the problem. Modern cabbage has thicker, tougher leaves, so when you're shopping, you want the cabbage with the youngest, finest leaves you can find. Typically, the vein size helps you spot the better cabbages. You want small, fine veins, not thick protruding ones. Yes, that makes shopping for cabbage a challenge.

Additionally, before you stuff your leaves and roll them, you may have to take a knife a slice the vein to reduce its thickness, but if you do this, you have to be careful not to cut a hole in the cabbage, so think of it more as shaving the vein down rather that slicing it off.
posted by sardonyx at 8:58 AM on April 27, 2022

Best answer: I've always cored the cabbage, cooked the whole thing upside down in a huge pot, removed a single leaf at a time wit tongs and then - and this is the crucial step you're missing, I think - shaved the central rib with a paring knife. Easy peasy to roll them up once that reinforcement is gone.
posted by kate4914 at 8:58 AM on April 27, 2022 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Like others, my grandma boiled/shocked individual leaves and cut the very end of the cabbage off. Cooked it in her tomato sauce so the rolls were completely submerged.


Me personally, I make a casserole. The ground meat/rice, chopped cabbage and the sauce. I don't have the patience or time to make rolls.
posted by kathrynm at 9:00 AM on April 27, 2022 [4 favorites]

Best answer: I'm Polish and I make gołąbki. It sounds like maybe you aren't cooking the parcels for long enough, or with enough heat -- possibly you also need to do something about the thick veiny parts of the leaf. I will describe my usual process -- maybe some of this will be useful.

I partially steam the head of the cabbage to get the leaves, but only enough to make them pliable, otherwise it's impossible to get them off the cabbage, or to wrap anything in them. I steam for a bit, peel off some leaves, put the cabbage back to steam, and repeat until I have my desired number of cabbage leaves (the partially cooked centre that's left over is great for roasting or putting in a casserole).

Just so we're on the same page, are you using one of the bog-standard white cabbage cultivars with a densely-packed head of smooth leaves? You can use lots of different kinds of cabbage; you may be using something which is particularly tough (alternatively you might want to switch to a variety with more delicate leaves).

Once I have my pile of leaves, I use a meat tenderising mallet to crush the thick hard veins in the centres of the leaves. This makes the whole leaf flexible and suitable for wrapping (and probably also makes that part of the leaf less tough once cooked).

My preferred method of cooking the parcels is baking in the oven -- that may also have some effect on the final texture, and I love the taste of roasted cabbage. I lay the parcels seam side down (that also makes the thicker leaf parts end up on the bottom) and bake (not grill) the parcels at a medium temperature (maybe lasagna temperature?) until I can see that the cabbage has browned (to prevent burning it's a good idea to brush oil on the surface). I pour over the sauce afterwards (in my family the traditional sauce is a bechamel base with tomato paste).
posted by confluency at 9:25 AM on April 27, 2022 [3 favorites]

Best answer: I use this recipe, which is Armenian, not Polish, but it is frigging delicious, I could eat them every day, if I had the time to make them. I always use pointy cabbage, because it is my favorite cabbage, but I feel it is the method in the recipe and not the type of cabbage that is important.
posted by mumimor at 10:05 AM on April 27, 2022 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I don't know boiling cabbage particulars. Just popping in to say that alkalinity softens up cellulose real nice. Internet check suggests that boiling cabbage leaves with some baking soda is a common trick.
posted by fingersandtoes at 10:38 AM on April 27, 2022

Best answer: I can't find the exact video, but Balkan Dad on Tiktok swears by using pickled cabbage for cabbage rolls. His style would be Balkan, not Polish though.
posted by purple_bird at 12:12 PM on April 27, 2022 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Red cabbage makes for delicious rolls and tends to have smaller, less thick leaves.
posted by cacao at 12:13 PM on April 27, 2022

Best answer: Pre salt and let soak to get off excess water?
posted by St. Peepsburg at 5:48 PM on April 27, 2022

Best answer: I don’t know anything about cooking them, but my mom makes amazing cabbage rolls and also swears by Taiwan cabbage just like piamater’s. I remember she subbed standard cabbage one time and they were pretty tough.
posted by vanitas at 6:51 PM on April 27, 2022

Best answer: My friend Maria is first generation Romanian and a fantastic cook. She sours whole heads of cabbage in salt water for a few weeks prior to making her cabbage rolls. The resulting cabbage rolls are meltingly tender
posted by olopua at 8:20 PM on April 27, 2022

Response by poster: Thanks for all the suggestions! I'm intrigued by the different cabbage varieties and also by possibly pickling first. I am also going to try a deeper baking dish with more sauce. I can never have enough sauce.

For those curious, the filling is mixed and stuffed in uncooked then the stuffed cabbage packets are covered in sauce and baked until cooked through. If you want to make your meat go further, add in cooked rice. Serve with bread for sopping up the sauce.
posted by carrioncomfort at 7:44 AM on April 28, 2022