The first part of this recipe that involves cooking the whole cabbage long enough to liberate as many of its layers as possible is very therapeutic and I love it. Make this dish when you have a lot of internal stuff to process or when you are really stressed and you want to give yourselves much needed ‘me’ time.
I used a 2kg cabbage and created a beautiful sharing plate of mince surrounded by the cabbage leaves which looked very beautiful decorated with the carrot slices and rolled some individual dolmas too. It depends who big you make your pretty sharing plate but the food created is certainly sufficient for 6 – 8 people.
Try if you can to find a cabbage that looks as loose in its make up as possible. In Greece, we have cabbages specifically for dolma and they are a joy to handle. Perhaps you can find such cabbages in London but where I live I have to spend much time and love separating the leaves of the cabbage as the hot water works its magic, softening them.
Because the sharing, large dolma is in effect steamed and does not give us delicious stock to make the traditional avgolemono sauce, I make avgolemono for the cabbage heart and individual dolmades which I cooked in the same pan and I drizzled the sharing dolma with some tahini diluted in a little stock and flavoured with lemon and yogurt.
Ingredients
- 1 white cabbage weighing 2 kg
- 1 medium onion, finely chopped
- 2 leeks, cut lengthwise in the shape of a cross and finely sliced
- 3-4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil and extra for greasing and drizzling
- 250g pork mince
- 250g beef mince
- 2 pork & leek sausages
- 100ml white wine
- 100g rice
- 100ml vegetable stock
- 1 lemon, juice & zest
- 1 tsp cumin powder
- ½ tsp coriander powder
- 1 small bunch of dill, finely chopped
To decorate the sharing dolma
- Use pretty cutters to cut quickly pickled carrots and turnips
For the avgolemono sauce
- 2 eggs
- 1 lemon, juice and zest
Method
Trim the cabbage of its outer leaves and remove its core in a conical fashion with a sharp knife. The aim is to facilitate the cabbage leaves to detach themselves as the cabbage cooks.
Bring a pot large enough to fit the cabbage half full to the boil and add the cabbage. When the water reaches boiling point again, reduce and cook the cabbage. Do not leave the cabbage unattended but instead test every so often and remove the layers of leaves as these detach themselves. Drop them in icy water and then drain in a large colander and in clean tea towels. You can use the heart of the cabbage in a number of different ways. Shred and make a frittata, hollow out to also stuff with mince as I have done here or stuff it with a plant based rice stuffing but it is a rather tasty part so it is very much worth using.
The outer leaves too or the very small ones can be used to line your cooking pot on the base so that the individual dolma don’t scorch. The last thing you need to do in order to get the leaves ready for use is with a sharp knife to slice horizontally part of the hard ridge of each leaf because this would stop the leaf from being flexible enough to be rolled.
To cook the meat stuffing, cut the casing to free the sausage meat. Add it to the mince.
Bring a large sauteing pan to a medium heat and add the olive oil. Add the onion and sweat it for a 3-4 minutes. Add the chopped leeks and continue sweating the vegetables until translucent. Add the cumin and coriander and stir for a minute or two further to release the spice aromas. Increase the heat and add the meat and brown stirring all the time. Next add the rice and stir the whole thing for a couple of minutes and then add the wine. Let it evaporate and add the stock. When the stock also evaporates almost completely, turn the heat off and leave the mix to cool a little. Add the finely chopped dill and half the lemon zest and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
For the sharing dolma, grease a cake mould with a little olive oil. I used a small one in the shape of a ring but you don’t have to. Just take care if you use a deep cake dish, you will need to support the stuffing with layers of cabbage leaves to give it more structure so it does not fall apart when you remove it from the cake tin.
Line the cake tin with some cooked leaves, not leaving any gaps. Spoon half the mince mix that will fit in the cake dish and top with a single layer of leaves. Sprinkle with a little olive oil, salt and pepper and 2-3 tbsp of water. Add the rest of the mince mix and top with the remaining cabbage leaves, again sprinkling with some olive oil and a bit of water. Cover with foil and top with a heavy plate.
Place the cake tin in a large saucepan and fill with water to reach half way up the sides of the tin. Bring to a slow simmer and cook till the filling and cabbage leaves are cooked, approx. 75 minutes. Check after 60, adding more water to the saucepan if necessary. Taste to ensure that the rice and cabbage are both cooked and remove from the heat. Leave it to cool a little before turning upside down onto a pretty platter and drizzling with the tahini sauce. Decorate with the pickles and sprinkle with the remaining lemon zest.
Use some unwanted cabbage leaves to line the bottom of a saucepan large enough to fit the heart and a few dolmades around it, after you have greased it with a little olive oil.
Hollow out the cabbage heart, rub its cavity with some olive oil and season. Fill with stuffing ¾ to the top. Cover the stuffing with a cabbage leave and push it with your fingers to go down the side inside the heart to stop the filling escaping as it cooks. Place in the lined saucepan.
For the individual dolma, place a single leaf on a board. Spoon a tablespoon of the mince mix and wrap by folding the sides and then rolling to secure. Place around or on top of the heart, depending on how big the saucepan is. Continue until the cabbage leaves and stuffing have been used up. To finish, sprinkle the contents of the saucepan with some sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, pour over everything a glass of hot water and 30-50 ml of extra virgin olive oil.
Cover the contents with a heatproof plate and place a weight on top of it. Put a lid on the saucepan and cook the heart and the dolma for 1 hour, adding some water or stock if necessary. You will need to have over a mugful of stock left in the saucepan at the end in order to make the avgolemono sauce. When the dish is cooked take the saucepan off the heat.
To make the avgolemono sauce, beat the eggs in a bowl and add the lemon juice beating all the time. Using a soup ladle, take some of the hot stock and add it in a thin stream to the egg while whisking all the time. Repeat with one more ladle full and pour the avgolemono mix into the saucepan. Taking the saucepan from its handles, swirl gently from left to right and back again a few times so that the sauce coats everything in the saucepan and thickens.
Serve the cabbage heart and individual dolma drizzling with the avgolemono sauce and sprinkling with some dill and lemon zest.
