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Stuffed Cabbage (Take a large tender cabbage)
Take a large tender cabbage, remove the outer leaves and cut off the stalk. Scald this in boiling water for fourteen minutes, make a hole in the middle by the side of the stalk and fill it and between leaves with highly seasoned meat or sausage meat. Bind the cabbage round carefully and stand it in a stewpan with some gravy, a slice of bacon and some sweet herbs. Let all stew gently and when done, place the cabbage on a hot dish, untie the string and pour the strained gravy round it and garnish with balls of boiled turnips.
A whole stuffed cabbage, bound and braised — a dish that stands or falls on how well it holds together. The original assumes you know what a stewpan of gravy looks like and how long a stuffed cabbage takes; here are the numbers.
- The hinge: bind it properlyOnce stuffed, the cabbage must be tied tightly in a cradle of kitchen twine — several passes around, like a parcel, north-south and east-west. A loose tie lets the leaves open in the pot and the whole thing disintegrates into stewed cabbage and meatballs. A double layer of cheesecloth under the string makes it more forgiving and easier to lift out whole.
- Scalding timeFourteen minutes in boiling water is for a genuinely large, firm head. Aim for pliable outer leaves that bend without cracking, not collapse. Drain it upside down and let it cool enough to handle before you start prying leaves apart, or you will tear them.
- How much fillingNo quantity is given. For a 3 lb head, 1 to 1.5 lb of sausage meat or highly seasoned forcemeat fills the hollowed core and goes in thin layers between the leaves. Overfilling is the usual cause of splitting.
- "Sweet herbs"Period shorthand for the mild kitchen herbs — thyme, parsley, marjoram, a bay leaf — as opposed to strong or bitter ones. Tie them in a bundle so they can be fished out before the gravy is strained.
- The braising liquid"Some gravy" means brown stock or meat gravy, enough to come a third to halfway up the cabbage, not to cover it. The recipe does not say where the bacon goes; laying the slice underneath keeps the cabbage off the pan bottom and seasons the liquid. Lid on, barest simmer.
- Cooking time and donenessReckon on 1.5 to 2 hours of gentle stewing for a large head. "When done" means the stuffing is cooked through: a thermometer pushed into the centre should read 165F, and a skewer should meet no resistance in the cabbage.
- Balls of boiled turnipsCut with a melon baller from peeled turnips and boiled separately until just tender. They are a garnish, not part of the braise — added to the pot they would go to mush.
- Serving and yieldLift the cabbage out with two spatulas or by the cheesecloth, cut the strings, and let it sit five minutes before cutting into wedges from the top so each portion carries stuffing. Reduce the strained liquid if it is thin. A large head serves six.
Whole stuffed cabbage belongs to a long European tradition of making one modest vegetable carry a small amount of meat a long way — the French chou farci, hollowed, packed with forcemeat, tied and braised, is a close relative, and versions turn up across Central and Eastern Europe as well. Cabbage was cheap, stored through winter in a cellar or clamp, and had a reputation as peasant food that the braise-and-garnish treatment here is quietly working against: the bacon, the strained gravy poured round and the turned turnip balls are the manners of a served dish, not a pot supper. If the recipe sits in a Game chapter, that would point to a use for trimmings and tough scraps from hare, venison or wildfowl, with "highly seasoned meat" an invitation to grind them with fat pork and heavy seasoning — game forcemeat being strongly flavoured by necessity, since the meat is lean and the offcuts are the least tender parts of the animal.