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Stuffed Cabbage
1 cabbage 2 oz. fat, salt pork (chopped fine) 2 oz. tender beef (chopped fine) 2 tablespoons butter 2 egg yolks 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon parsley 1 teaspoon minced onion Few grains cayenne 1 French roll Parboil cabbage till thoroughly wilted, drain and cool; unfold leaf by leaf, until the heart is reached. Chop the tender leaves. Soak the roll in milk and press dry. Beat the egg and bread together, add the creamed butter and work in the meat, cabbage and seasoning. Form into a ball and place in the cabbage head. Refold the leaves and bake three to four hours, basting with butter and water. Serve on a round, hot platter with the gravy from the pan.
A whole cabbage rebuilt around a forcemeat ball — closer to a French chou farci than to the rolled cabbage parcels most people know. The hinge is the parboiling: the leaves must be pliable enough to peel back without cracking, or the head will not close again.
- Parboiling the headCore the cabbage first, then lower it whole into boiling salted water for 8 to 12 minutes, until the outer leaves bend rather than snap. Drain upside down and cool completely before peeling the leaves outward one by one, or they tear at the base.
- The weightsTwo ounces each of salt pork and beef is about 1/4 cup chopped of each — a modest amount of filling for a whole cabbage. For a 2 to 2 1/2 lb head, doubling both meats gives a stuffing in better proportion to the leaves.
- French rollA small soft white dinner roll, crumb only. Roughly 1 cup of torn crumb; soak in milk to saturate, then squeeze firmly. Panko or dry breadcrumbs will not behave the same way — they absorb without softening into paste.
- Egg yolksTwo yolks bind the forcemeat; the recipe's later "beat the egg and bread together" means those yolks, not whole eggs.
- Salt porkSalt pork varies a good deal in saltiness. Rinse it, and taste the mixture before adding the full teaspoon of salt.
- Oven and timingNo temperature is given; a moderate oven, 350F, suits it. Three to four hours is longer than needed — at 350F, 1 1/2 to 2 hours will cook the stuffing through and leave the cabbage tender rather than collapsed. Bake in a snug pot or Dutch oven so the head keeps its shape.
- Holding it togetherTie the refolded head with kitchen twine in two directions, or wrap it in cheesecloth and knot the corners. Untie before serving and the seams disappear.
- Basting and gravyButter and water in the pan makes a thin pan juice, not a thickened sauce. Strain it, reduce it, and whisk in a knob of butter if you want it to coat.
- YieldOne head serves four as a main course, six cut in wedges alongside other dishes. Carve it at the table like a small roast.
Stuffed whole cabbage belongs to a long European tradition of thrift cookery in which a large cheap vegetable carries a small quantity of expensive meat — here four ounces of pork and beef, stretched with bread and the cabbage's own chopped heart. The technique of unfolding the leaves, packing a forcemeat into the centre and rebinding the head is generally traced to French provincial chou farci, and the appearance of a "French roll" and creamed butter in the mixture suggests this version reached American cookbooks by way of the same continental cookery that gave the period its croquettes and timbales.