Sarmale
Why I Love This Recipe
Sarmale is a Romanian common dish. Sarmale is cabbage rolls that are made with sour cabbage. They are typically filled with a meat mixture and rolled in cabbage leaves cooked in an oven.
Ingredients You'll Need
2 to 3 lbs ground pork (or whatever meat you prefer)
½ cup long grain rice (I prefer basmati)
1-2 onions chopped
parsley
dill
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 L tomato juice
salt and pepper to taste
1 large sour cabbage
15 slices of bacon
Directions
1. Chop the onions and fry them in the oil until tender. Add rice and cook for another minute. Add onion and rice mixture to ground pork and add salt, pepper, dill and parsley and mix well with your hands. Now it's time to assemble the rolls.
2. Remove all the cabbage leaves and cut each leaf in half. Romanian cabbage rolls are traditionally smaller than the Polish cabbage rolls, so that's why I recommend cutting each leaf in half, otherwise you can use the entire leave for one roll.
3. Fill each half leaf with a big tbsp of the meat mixture and roll. Put all the rolls in a big pot and add the liter of tomato juice over the rolls. Add more water if needed, the juice should cover the rolls entirely. Cover the pot with aluminum foil and bake at 375 degrees for about 4 hours.
4. After 2 hours remove the foil and put back in the oven. Serve hot with a bit of sour cream on top.
