22: Lamb Stuffed Cabbage Rolls / Green Pepper-Tomato Sauce

I’ve realized a lot of the food I cook is predominantly new American with heavy French/Italian influence, so I’ve decided to do some different things. I reached deep into my Irish blood for this stuffed cabbage recipe. It’s a nice change of pace, and it goes well with a lighter style beer. We enjoyed it Troeg’s Pale Ale from Pennsylvania.

I didn’t measure out the spices on this one, so please feel free to play around with the amounts.  The prep is quick, and I had half of this left over to serve as post workout snacks. Be careful not to tweek the spices too much, or it won’t be Irish anymore.

Ingredients and Directions:

Cabbage Rolls

1 lb ground lamb (make not sure it’s not too fatty)
1/4 cup cooked instant rice
1 egg, beaten
2 cloves minced garlic
mustard seeds
minced sage
coriander
allspice (nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon for the most part)
8 large cabbage leaves, blanched
salt and pepper

Sauce
2 cups diced tomatoes
3/4 cup chopped onion
3/4 cup chopped green pepper
1/4 cup lemon juice
3 tablespoons brown sugar

salt and pepper

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Blanch your cabbage in hot water, drain, and set aside. Combine all the cabbage roll ingredients in a bowl. Get liberal with the seasoning because what and how you flavor the meat with will stand out in the dish. I made 8 meat rolls, about 3 inches long, each out of the meat. You could easily do less with larger pieces.  Place a roll in the center of each leaf, and roll them up. Arrange the rolls in a baking dish.

Combine all the sauce parts together in a bowl. Be sure to taste for adding salt and pepper to this. Pour the mixture over the cabbage rolls. Cover and bake for 60 minutes.

Enoy!