Both of my parents were born in Hungary, and, lucky for me, my Mom still loves to make Hungarian dishes. Stuffed Cabbage is a family favorite, especially in the colder months, and I’ve adapted my Mom’s recipe a little bit over time. If you decide to make the dish, be sure to set aside enough time (1-2 hours for prep, 4 hours or longer for cooking time). This is a great leftover meal, as it tastes better when reheated.

Paprika is a key ingredient in Hungarian cooking, so when using it, take the time to look for a good quality Paprika, preferably Hungarian. Hungarian Paprika is a little spicier than Spanish Paprika, and provides a wonderful color as well as needed flavor to the dish. Our local supermarket carries Hungarian Paprika in the spice aisle (Pride of Szeged Hungarian Paprika), and we buy a lot of our spices from Penzey’s – they have several varieties of Paprika, but I prefer to use the Hungarian Sweet.
Ingredients:

• 1 large or 2 medium Green Cabbages
• 1 1/2 pounds Ground Beef
• 1 pound Ground Pork
• 1/4 cup non-instant Rice
• 1/4 pound Bacon, diced
• 1 medium sweet Onion, diced
• 3 tablespoons Flour
• 1 bag of fresh or one large can Sauerkraut
• 1 Green Pepper, diced
• 1Tomato, diced
• 4 tablespoons good quality Paprika, preferably Hungarian
• Kosher Salt
• Ground Black Pepper
• Sour Cream for garnish, if desired

Core cabbage(s). Bring enough water to a boil so that the entire cabbage will be emersed. Boil cabbage (one at a time if using two) for approximately 5 minutes or until leaves are starting to pull away from core. Remove from water and let cool. Once cooled off, carefully remove green leaves until you reach the tougher white leaves. Do not use the white ones for rolling as they are difficult to fold, but roughly chop a few of them to add to the stock pot.

Parboil rice for 10 minutes. While the rice is cooking, combine ground beef, pork, 3 teaspoons salt and 1 teaspoon pepper in a bowl; mix well to incorporate salt and pepper.

Meanwhile, brown bacon in medium to large stock pot. Remove bacon and half of the grease that was rendered (discard grease). Add onions to remaining bacon grease and cook until translucent. Remove half of the onion mixture and add it along with the rice to the meat mixture; stir to incorporate the onions and rice. Add the flour to the remaining onion mixture in the stock pot and stir for a couple of minutes; this will help eliminate the flour flavor, but help to thicken the base. Add paprika and four cups of water. Stir and bring to a soft boil.

Rinse the sauerkraut in a strainer. Add the diced green pepper and tomato and gently toss to incorporate them together.

On a cutting board, trim off the tough stems of each cabbage leaf as shown in the picture below; this will make the rolling easier.

Put about a tablespoon (depending on the size of the leaf) of the filling into each leaf, and fold bottom to the middle, then each side into the middle, then roll leaf (will resemble an egg roll, as pictured below).

To assemble, put some of the leftover cut-up cabbage leaves into the bottom of the stock pot, then add a little of the sauerkraut mixture. Lightly salt and pepper contents in the pot.

Next, place cabbage rolls in a circle, and fill in gaps with the meatballs. Cover with more cut up cabbage leaves and another layer of the sauerkraut mixture. Lightly salt and pepper again. Continue until you are out of cabbage rolls and meatballs. Finish off with the sauerkraut mixture on top. Add enough water to barely cover mixture.

Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to a simmer/soft boil for at least 4 hours, as you are cooking raw pork. The longer you let it cook, the more flavor you will get out of the dish. Oftentimes, this dish is served with a dollup of sour cream. Enjoy!

One of the things I love about fall is making spring rolls. We fry them out in the garage to avoid the greasy, smelly mess they can leave in their wake. Here in Wisconsin, it is too hot and humid in the summer and way too cold in the winter, so we stock up in the fall and spring and make them by the boatload. When I first started making these, I was very confused. Are they made with raw pork? What is with the wrappers–are they rice paper wrappers? What kind of noodles do I need in them? How do I deal with Asian ingredients, when the directions are not in English? I consulted various websites, but unfortunately today none of the links work anymore. What you will find here is a combination of some of those recipes with my own ideas, tricks and tweaks to create the ultimate spring roll guide. Well, maybe ultimate is going a little too far, but I hope to take some of the confusion and disasters away that I faced when beginning to make them.

Tips:

1. If you are making the full 150 that this recipe calls for, try and spread the tasks out across 2 days. Do the shopping and sauces one day and the rolling and frying the next day. The frying alone takes 3.5 hours. This ends up being an all day event so make sure you have the time and try to con your friends and family into helping you.
2. It is very important to make sure that all of the ingredients get evenly mixed. Instead of mixing everything together at the same time, I have found that it is better to slowly incorporate each ingredient into the mixture.
3. Do not roll the spring rolls too far in advance. If the wrappers get too moist, they will not fry properly and start to break open and brown too quickly. The salt will start to draw out moisture from the filling and make the wrappers too soggy to work with.
4. These freeze and reheat wonderfully if done correctly. See tips for freezing at the end.

Makes approximately 150 Spring Rolls

Ingredients:

• 14 ounces Bean Thread Noodles
• 150 frozen Spring Roll Wrappers
• Dried Shitake Mushrooms
• Dried Wood Ear Mushrooms or Black Fungus Mushrooms
• 2 pounds Shallots
• 5 pounds Carrots
• 5 pounds raw Ground Pork
• 4 cups Cilantro (2 cups chopped and packed)
• 8 teaspoons Soy Sauce
• 8 teaspoons Kosher Salt
• 3 teaspoons fresh Cracked Black Pepper
• Corn Starch
• Peanut Oil for frying

A few Notes on some of the ingredients:

• Wrappers: Make sure that you use the frozen spring roll wrappers, not the thicker wonton / egg roll style wrappers. I have used Banh Trang (rice paper), but they do not fry up as well and turn out much more greasy. These frozen spring roll wrappers are light and flaky and have a pastry-like quality.
• Noodles: I have made these spring rolls with both rice vermicelli and bean thread noodles (they are also called bean vermicelli, cellophane noodles or glass noodles). I prefer the transparent bean thread noodles.
• Dried Mushrooms: Scared of something called dried black fungus? Awww… it’s okay, they won’t bite! They are actually quite mild in flavor. With the small amount called for in this recipe along with chopping them up very fine, you won’t even know they are there. They do add a nice flavor to the spring roll so I recommend you at least try them this way.
• Oil for frying: I prefer to use peanut oil. I find that the spring rolls come out very crispy and not oily. Peanut oil also has a very neutral flavor so you do not taste the oil.

Bring a pot of water to a boil and let the mushrooms soak off of the heat for 30 minutes. I used about 1/2 of each of the 2.5 ounce bags shown above.

While the mushrooms are re-hydrating, peel and grate the carrots, and finely mince the shallots.

For the noodles, bring a pot of water to a boil and soak the noodles off of the heat also, but only for 3 – 5 minutes or until done. Rinse them under cold water so they are completely cooled off, and let them drain for about 5 minutes — do not let them clump together. Drain and finely mince the mushrooms.

Throughout this mixing step, slowly add 3 teaspoons of fresh cracked pepper, 6 teaspoons of soy sauce and 6 teaspoons of kosher salt. In a large bowl, thoroughly mix the shallots, carrots, cilantro and 1 and 1/2 cups of the mushrooms together. When the veggies have been mixed together, roughly chop the noodles and work them into the mixture.

Combine the pork with 2 teaspoons of soy sauce, 2 teaspoons of kosher salt and 1 teaspoon of fresh cracked black pepper.

Throughly combine the meat and veggie mixture.

On to the wrapping. Remember how I mentioned that you need to con family and friends into helping? Well, the wrapping is done by Kris, so she’ll take over the instructions for it.

Make sure that you have thawed out the spring roll wrappers 30 minutes prior to use. I also pull each one apart to make for quicker wrapping. Once you are ready to begin, mix together corn starch with water in a bowl (I don’t really measure, just dump a little corn starch into the bowl and add water and stir). The corn starch will be your glue. Have the meat and veggie mixture in front of you. Put a wrapper onto your work surface, and place about a tablespoon of the meat and veggie mixture onto the wrapper as shown below. Fold the bottom over the mixture, and then put the corn starch mixture all along the remaining three edges (I find it easiest to use my fingers – much quicker than using a spoon). Fold over each side, then roll the wrapper up.

Before you get busy with rolling and frying, STOP! Do a test run of 2 or 3 rolls. Make sure they get thoroughly cooked at your planned time and temperature. I normally fry 5 rolls for 7 minutes at 375 degrees, but you may need to adjust this. You also need to make sure that the seasoning is correct and adjust it accordingly as needed. This is important! Don’t go making 150 under-seasoned and undercooked spring rolls!

A couple of sauces to serve this with:

• Spicy Sweet and Soy Dipping Sauce
• Sweet and Sour Sauce

Tips for freezing and reheating:

1. When the spring rolls have cooled off to room temperature, lay them out, one layer deep on a sheet pan and freeze them for 3 – 24 hours.
2. When they are completely frozen solid, seal them with a vacuum food sealer. By sealing them frozen, we avoid squishing and crushing them.
3. You can place them completely frozen in an non-preheated oven for 20 minutes at 350 degrees or thawed in a preheated oven for 8-10 minutes at 375 degrees.

A few notes and tips:

• Make sure you soak the grape leaves in water for at least 15 minutes otherwise they may be very salty. I kept them in water while i was rolling them. This also makes sure they stay moist.
• Try not to let the grape leaves get to dry before grilling them so they don’t burn and crumble.
• Don’t over cook the rice. I like to cook mine with a little bit of butter as this helps keep the grains separate. Fluff the rice a few times so it cools off nicely. You don’t want a big clump of glutinous rice.

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup Dried Cherries (unsweetened), chopped
• 1 small red Onion , minced
• 1/4 cup Fresh Parsley, Finley chopped
• 1 cup diced [tag]Tomatoes[tag]
• 1-2 cloves of Garlic, minced
• 3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese.
• 1 teaspoon Kosher [tag]Salt[tag]
• 1 pound of Ground Pork.
• 3 cups cooked Jasmine Rice, room temp
• Juice of 1 Lemon
• Lemon Zest, from one lemon.
• 30 Brined Grape leaves, rinsed

Mix everything but the pork , grape leaves and half of the salt in a large mixing bowl. Taste the mixture and adjust the seasoning. If you want to go meatless you can skip the next step with the pork. Some kalamata olives would be great instead.

Combine the other half of the salt with the pork separately and mix the pork and the rice stuffing together. This just ensures that everything gets evenly seasoned.

Lay a grape leave flat and place a log of the stuffing on it. To roll it up, fold the back over first and then fold each side over.

Now just roll it up tight.

Place the stuffed grape leaves on the top rack of your grill with the seam side down. Cook them this way at ~400 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until cooked all the way through. There is raw pork in there so make sure it is completely cooked.

Flip them half way through the total cooking time.

You can serve them with a drizzle of good extra virgin olive oil and touch of lemon juice over the top. I have also added some finely diced red pepper and fresh parsley.