As travelling has also a lot to do with food and different cuisines so today it will be the first time on my blog that I will present the recipe for a traditional Polish dish golabki.
It’s a traditional Polish dish made of rice, mince beef and cabbage. The translation of “gołąbki” would be "pigeons", but it has nothing to do with birds so do not be terrified. I suppose the name of the dish has to do with the way it looks like and believe me it is delicious and easy to make so why not to try to make something Polish for a change.
INGREDIENTS
1 or 2 head of white or savoy cabbages (they shouldn’t be too small because otherwise it will be impossible to put stuffing inside)
500g of mince beef or pork mince
a glass of rice
onion
garlic
stock cube
olive oil
salt, pepper, paprika, bay leaf, allspices
PREPARATION
1. Remove the core from the head of the cabbage, put the cabbage in a pot with boiling water. After few minutes, start pulling off a leaf one after another and place them on a separate plate to cool down. Then remove the tough stem with a knife from all the leaves you are going to use.
2. In the meantime, cook rice in a salty water. You can use salt or a stock cube. Once ready, drain rice in a colander.
3. Chop onion and garlic and place them on a hot frying pan together with olive oil. After few minutes, add mince beef or pork mince and fry it until it’s not raw anymore. Then add spices which you like. I usually add Polish seasoning Vegetta (but you can use just salt), black pepper, paprika, parsley and crushed chillies (which is not very Polish but crused chillies make the stuffing more interesting).
4. Mix rice with the stuffing.
5. In a big pot place few cabbage leaves which you are not going to use on the bottom of it. Then take one leaf and put a bit of stuffing on it. You can use a spoon to make it easier. Then fold the leaf first from the bottom where the core is, then from the sides and at the end from the top. It’s more or less the same way as you make tortilla (the only difference is you don’t fold tortilla from the top). Once golabek is ready place it in the pot. Then repeat it with other leaves. Try to place golabki next to another to leave as little space as possible among them.
6. When you make all golabki, pour some water inside the pot, add stock cube, a bay leaf and two allspices.
7. Cook them until cabbage is soft.
8. Serve on a plate with a tomato sauce or mushroom sauce.
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| Remove the core |
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| Cook rice |
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| Mix rice with stuffing |
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| Remove the stem |
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| Place stuffing on a leaf |
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| Ready golabek |
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| Golabki in a pot |
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| Golabki with tomato sauce ready to eat. Enjoy it |
My Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22762999@N00/
