By Christmas week. The last full week of school ended Friday and I said goodbye to my students for winter break with the mix of relief and tenderness that characterizes the end of every semester — they will not be in my classroom for two weeks, and when they come back they will be slightly bigger versions of themselves, which is how children are over break, and we will spend a week rebuilding the routine and then we will be in the stretch that ends in June when some of them will move on. I am not thinking about June yet. December is for December.
Christmas Eve is tomorrow and I have been cooking since Saturday. The potato pancakes: done. The kolaczki: done in tins. The cranberry sauce: done in a jar. The sweet potato casserole: assembled, in the fridge, needs the oven and the pecan topping. I have one more thing to make today: the pierogi, my version, the forty-minute project that I have been doing all year and that has gotten genuinely good. I called Babcia Rose at 7 AM (she is awake at 7, she is always awake) and she talked me through the dough one more time. She said it would be good. I said I hoped so. She said she knew so. That is the closest to a full endorsement as I get from her and I am keeping it.
Ryan gift is wrapped and under the tree. I will not say what it is here even though I said that about his gift and then said it anyway. Okay. I got him a beautiful leather-bound sketchbook and drawing pens because he has been wanting to learn to draw for years and keeps not starting, and the right equipment is sometimes the thing that starts the starting. He does not know I know this about him. He will know on Christmas morning. He will look at it and look at me and I will watch his face do the thing it does when something is exactly right.
Tomorrow. The year. The family. The food we made with our hands.
The pierogi will be the centerpiece today, but every Christmas Eve table I have ever known has been built on more than one dish — it is a layered thing, a table that took days to assemble. These cabbage rolls are part of that tradition for me, the kind of recipe that feels as much like an act of faith as it does cooking: you wrap something carefully, you put it in the pot, and you trust the heat to do the rest. They go in the oven alongside everything else, and by the time the family arrives, the whole house smells like something Babcia Rose would recognize.
Cabbage Rolls with Tomato Sauce
Prep Time: 30 minutes | Cook Time: 1 hour 30 minutes | Total Time: 2 hours | Servings: 6
Ingredients
- 1 large head green cabbage
- 1 lb ground beef (80/20)
- 1/2 lb ground pork
- 1 cup cooked white rice
- 1 medium yellow onion, finely diced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram
- 1 can (28 oz) crushed tomatoes
- 1 can (15 oz) tomato sauce
- 1 tablespoon brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Blanch the cabbage. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Core the cabbage and submerge it whole. As the outer leaves soften (about 2—3 minutes each), carefully peel them off with tongs and set aside on a clean towel to cool and dry. You’ll need 12 large, pliable leaves.
- Make the filling. In a large bowl, combine ground beef, ground pork, cooked rice, onion, garlic, egg, salt, pepper, and marjoram. Mix until just combined — do not overwork the meat.
- Make the tomato sauce. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, stir together crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, and smoked paprika. Season with salt and pepper. Simmer for 10 minutes and remove from heat.
- Roll the cabbage. Lay a cabbage leaf flat. Place about 1/3 cup of filling near the base of the leaf. Fold the sides in, then roll firmly from the base upward, tucking as you go. Repeat with remaining leaves and filling.
- Assemble. Preheat oven to 350°F. Spread a thin layer of tomato sauce on the bottom of a large baking dish. Arrange cabbage rolls seam-side down in a single layer. Pour the remaining tomato sauce evenly over the top. Cover tightly with foil.
- Bake. Bake covered for 1 hour 15 minutes. Remove foil and bake an additional 15 minutes until the sauce is slightly caramelized around the edges and the rolls are cooked through. Let rest 10 minutes before serving.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 390 | Protein: 28g | Fat: 18g | Carbs: 28g | Fiber: 4g | Sodium: 740mg