Read Online Around the Shabbat Table by Jayne Cohen - Free Book Online

first, so I overcame my longstanding disgust at handling the organ, bought the ingredients for preparing the dish, and went to his apartment to cook it. He wasn’t there.
    My brother called from the hospital where he was waiting with my father’s nurse. “Dad’s in the ER, but we’re bringing him home. Make the tongue,” he urged, “maybe he’ll eat it.”
    He did come home, not that day, but the next. By then, he wasn’t eating anything but sips of water.
    My brother ate the tongue. And I never made the sweet-and-sour stuffed cabbage.
    One day, when I told my daughter the story of the stuffed cabbage, she asked me to tell her the recipe. Then I made it for her.

    CLASSIC SWEET-AND-SOUR STUFFED CABBAGE
    yield: ABOUT 8 SERVINGS
    My father and I decided to add a little tomato puree to the meat and bit of rice, ensuring that the filling would remain tender and succulent in these subtly sweet-and-sour cabbage rolls.
    FOR THE CABBAGE ROLLS
    1 ⁄ 4 cup long-grain rice
    1 large head green cabbage or 2 smaller heads
    2 pounds lean ground beef (ground turkey—dark meat from the thigh, especially—works well here, too)
    2 large eggs, beaten
    1 ⁄ 2 cup canned tomato puree
    Salt and freshly ground black pepper
    3 tablespoons light olive or other mild oil
    4 cups finely chopped onion
    2 tablespoons chopped garlic
    2 tablespoons brown sugar
    FOR THE SAUCE
    One 28-ounce can Italian plum tomatoes, coarsely chopped, with their juice
    1 cup canned tomato puree
    1 cup chicken broth, preferably homemade or good-quality low-sodium purchased
    1 cup chopped onion
    3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
    2 tablespoons brown sugar
    2 teaspoons minced candied ginger
    2 teaspoons cider vinegar
    Salt and freshly ground black pepper
    1 Turkish bay leaf

    1 ⁄ 2 cup golden raisins
    START the cabbage rolls: in a small bowl, soak the rice with a little warm water to cover. Using a sharp knife, carefully cut away the large outer leaves of the cabbage from the core end. Rinse, then blanch them in a large pot of boiling salted water, 4 or 5 at a time, until just soft enough to bend and fold without breaking. Drain and pat dry as they are done, and set them aside to cool. Coarsely chop the inner leaves too small to roll, and set aside; use no more than 2 cups of them for the sauce (any remainder can be discarded or saved for another purpose).
    IN a large bowl, combine the meat, eggs, tomato puree, salt (figure about 2 teaspoons kosher salt), and pepper to taste. Add the rice, drained, and mix well. Set the filling aside while you sauté onions and garlic.
    IN a very large (7- to 8-quart) Dutch oven or heavy ovenproof casserole, warm the oil over medium heat until it shimmers. Add the onions, salt and pepper them lightly, and sauté, lifting and turning occasionally, until softened and pale gold. Add the garlic and continue cooking for 5 more minutes. Scoop out about half of this mixture, put it in a small bowl to cool slightly, then add it to the filling and mix well.
    ADD the reserved chopped cabbage to the onion-garlic mixture remaining in the pot, sprinkle with salt, and stir well. Cover the pot and cook over medium heat until the cabbage is lightly steamed and greatly reduced in volume. Uncover the pot, strew with the brown sugar, and sauté over moderately high heat, lifting and turning the vegetables so they don’t scorch, until the cabbage is softened and very lightly bronzed in parts. Turn off the heat.
    PREHEAT the oven to 325°F.
    STUFF the cabbage leaves: place them on a work surface, curled edges up, like an open palm. Cut out the hard little triangle at the base of each stem. Put about 1 ⁄ 3 cup of filling (depending on the size of the leaf) in the center. Fold the stem end of the leaf over the filling, then tuck in the two sides. Pull the top over these folds to enclose the roll. They should be compact and rounded, but remember, the rice will drink in the puree and the meat