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Stuffed Cabbage
Take a large, firm head of cabbage; wash well; take a sharp knife and cut out the center, being careful not to disfigure the shape of the cabthe shape of the cabbage; chop the heart of cabbage very fine, and add to it some force-meat, a little made mustard, pepper, salt, vinegar, onion, and a piece of butter; mix all together and put into the cabbage; then confine it in a bag closely, in order that it may hold together and retain its shape; boil until done ; bring to the table hot, and slice with a sharp knife . -Mrs. F. A. Fairchild.
A whole stuffed cabbage boiled in a cloth, in the style of a suet pudding. The text has been garbled by the typesetter into repeated phrases, but the method is clear enough; what it lacks is quantities and a cooking time.
- Force-meatSeasoned raw ground meat, usually pork or veal, often bound with breadcrumbs and egg. Any well-seasoned sausage meat stands in; figure on about a pound for a 2-3 lb head.
- Made mustardPrepared wet mustard, as opposed to dry mustard powder. A teaspoon or two of a sharp English or Dijon-style mustard suits the quantity here.
- The bagMost likely a pudding cloth or bag of the kind used for boiled puddings: a square of unbleached muslin, scalded and floured, gathered over the stuffed head and tied at the top. Cheesecloth alone is too flimsy; a doubled layer or a clean cotton tea towel holds better.
- Blanch firstSoftening the whole head in boiling water for a few minutes before hollowing it makes the leaves pliable and helps keep the shell from splitting when the filling goes in. The original does not mention the step.
- Cooking time and doneness"Boil until done" means roughly 1.5 to 2 hours at a bare simmer for a medium head. The hinge is the meat: check the center of the stuffing reads 160F before serving, since a dense filling inside a cabbage heats slowly.
- Simmer, not boilA hard rolling boil batters the parcel and can burst the cloth. Keep the water at a lazy simmer and the cabbage covered.
- Seasoning is unmeasuredPepper, salt, vinegar, onion and butter are all given without amounts. For a pound of force-meat, one small chopped onion, a tablespoon of vinegar and a tablespoon of butter is a reasonable starting point; taste a small fried spoonful of the raw mixture before stuffing.
- Yield and servingOne head serves four to six. Drain the parcel well, untie over a plate, and cut into wedges through the meat so each portion shows the cross-section.
Stuffing a whole cabbage and boiling it in a cloth is an old European economy dish that turns a few ounces of meat and a cheap winter vegetable into a joint-sized centerpiece, sliced at the table like a roast. It is essentially the French chou farci; the cloth-boiling technique it borrows is the same used for plum pudding and boiled suet puddings. Its presence in an American community cookbook, credited to a contributor rather than a professional, is typical: these books collected local recipes, and a dish that stretched a small amount of meat through a whole family earned its place. The rolled individual cabbage rolls now more familiar in the United States came largely with later Central and Eastern European immigration; the whole stuffed head is the older form.