Saturday, November 14, 2009

Stuffed cabbage rolls a la Greka or "Lahanodolmathes"

"Lahanodolmades" is my most favourite dish. My numero uno by a country mile! It's a bit tedious to prepare, but the result is worthwhile the hassle.
I am presenting here the recipe with two different sauces, the traditional and the one I like more, which has blue cheese. I had it yesterday for lunch, with both the sauces and had a very nice Chauteau Pontent-Chappaz, Margaux 2005 (17 euro a bottle) :
Ingredients: ( Serves 4 Greeks!)
-1/2 kg minced beef
-1/2 cup uncooked rice
-100 g. blue cheese
-1 egg
-1 tomato finely chopped
-1 lemon
-1 onion finely chopped
-1 yogurt
-2 tsp of mayonaise
-2 tsp of olive oil
-1 tsp corn starch
-1 bunch of chopped parsley
-25g butter
-Salt & pepper
Preparation:
Cabbage
-Cut the center of the cabbage, remove the heart and discard it
-Boil the cabbage in salted water for 5 minutes in a pot
-Peel the cabbage leaves one by one and allow them to drain and cool in a large dish. Don't throw away the water as you will be needing it later
Minced meat & rice mixture
-Put the minced meat, rice,chopped onion, finely cut tomato, chopped parsley, 2 tsp olive oil, salt & pepper in a pot and mix well with your hands.

-Take small quantities of the meat mixture and place them in the center of an open cabbage leaf as in the photo
- Create a roll as per photo
-Place the cabbage rolls in a pot in layers one on top of the other, use the water that you have collected from the original boiling of the cabbage, add hot water if necessary to submerge the cabbage rolls, add the butter. Cover the top cabbage roll layer with an inverted plate to prevent the rolls to move and unfold during boiling, boil for 45 minutes. Remove water and place rolls on a serving plate. Serve hot.

Sauces

A- Conventional: Take 2 cups of the broth prior to draining in a small pot, add 2 tsp of corn starch, one egg, squeeze one lemon, mix well and let it boil till it thickens

B-Blue cheese: Mix well one yogurt, 2 tsp mayonaise and 100g of blue cheese

3 comments:

James said...

To be added to the Anderson Family menu

lilaki said...

this is my favourite dish, i will try it this weekend, thanks for the recipe!! filakia xx

George Georgitsis said...

Hope you guys love it as much as I do