Hot Sausage Stuffed Red Cabbage leaves - A Daring Cook's Challenge

Hot Sausage Stuffed Red Cabbage leaves
Blog-checking lines: Our October 2010 hostess, Lori of Lori’s Lipsmacking Goodness, has challenged The Daring Cooks to stuff grape leaves. Lori chose a recipe from Aromas of Aleppo and a recipe from The New Book of Middle Eastern Food.

I wasn't very thrilled when I heard that this month's Daring Cook's Challenge was to stuff grape leaves. I've done it once before and it didn't turn out very well. In fact it was a disaster that I refused to post about. Once I read that we could substitute grape leaves with cabbage, I became much more interested.

Cabbage leaves are much easier to work with for me, and much easier to find (the last time I saw grape leaves was over a year ago). We also were given the choice of making the filling however we wanted as long as it included rice.

Hot Sausage Stuffed Red Cabbage leaves
Hot Sausage Stuffed Red Cabbage leaves 
  • 6 cups cooked brown rice
  • 1 package of frozen chopped spinach (about 300g)
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 2 hot sausages (125gs each)
  • 1/2 cup Rogan Josh cooking sauce (the spices in the kind I used include cardamom, cinnamon, clove, ginger, cumin, aniseed, saffron, fennel, red chillies, garlic and ghee)
  • Red cabbage
Defrost the spinach, drain of excess water and add to a large bowl with rice and chopped onion.

Remove the caseing from the sausages, breaking the meat up into bits and adding to the rice mixture. Add in the Rogan Josh seasoning/sauce. I would also add in a couple of pinches of salt at this point (I forgot to add some to mine and it would have brought the flavors together better).

Using your hands mix all the ingredients together so they are evenly distributed.

Grab a large pot of boiling water, big enough to submerge most of the cabbage head. Allow it to boil for a couple of minutes or long enough that the first couple of leaves are easy to remove. Place the cabbage back into the boiling water, this will soften the next layers while you stuff and roll the first ones.

Lay the leaves out so that they curve upwards like a bowl. Place a good amount of filling on the leaf, but make sure  there is enough room on edges to fold them inwards without filling being squeezed out!

When folding, make sure the filling is in a rectangle shape and horizontal with the stem of the cabbage leaf. The stem should be pointing at you. Fold the stem up to cover the filling once, then fold the sides in. Next, roll up to reach the end of the leaf.

Place in a casserole dish with the open side down. Repeat until you have all your leaves filled and rolled.
Pour about 1/2 inch of water into the casserole dish and cover with aluminum foil. Place an oven at 350F and allow to cook about 1 hour.

Hot Sausage Stuffed Red Cabbage leaves

I added a bit of extra sauce on top to give a bit more flavor (thanks to me forgetting the salt :\). The cabbage leaves turned out tender and I enjoyed the subtle flavor of them with the spiciness of the sauce and sausage. The hubby said his cabbage was a bit strong, but loved the filling. Even the kiddo ate this one with out complaint! I'd definitely do this again as it was a great hit with everyone :).

17 comments:

Audax said...

WOW red cabbage stuffed rolls they look so beautiful, maybe hubby might like green cabbage it is less bitter, your method is very different to the way I do it I bake them for 2.5 hours until well browned. Lovely photos and great to hear the kids liked them. Cheers from Audax in Sydney Australia.

Yesim said...

it looks so great.. never used red cabbage in this way, tx for sharing..

shelley c. said...

Your stuffed cabbage leaves look so spectacular - the bright colors are so enticing, making it look all the more appetizing! Excellent interpretation of the challenge.

Suz said...

Ooh, I love the sound of your flavourings and the hot sausage & it looks so pretty with the red cabbage!

Monkeyshines in the Kitchen said...

Love the vivid colour of the red cabbage - so pretty. Funny I've never seen a red cabbage roll before, but they're really beautiful. the spicy indian filling sounds great too!

Tasty Eats At Home said...

These sound really good! I planned on making cabbage rolls too. Unfortunately, time got away from me. Yours are great.

Anonymous said...

These sound great. Is there some other sauce I can use. I don't know if I can find the "Ragan Josh" sauce. I will try.

Whats Cookin Italian Style Cuisine said...

fabulous flavors and picture, salivating and wanting some so bad looks amazing!

Mardi Michels said...

Absolutely gorgeous colours Rochelle!!!

chef_d said...

Beautiful cabbage rolls! The colors are so pretty and the flavors you used are so yummy--I love rogan josh and all things spicy! Great job and beautiful pictures!

Becca said...

Beautiful photos! Your recipe sounds absolutely delicious.

blepharisma said...

Wow!!!! OK, this makes me want to make red cabbage rolls this weekend. So amazing looking!

Unknown said...

Great idea. Love the colour. It looks delicious.

Enzie Shahmiri said...

I love the color combinations of this dish!

Elisabeth said...

I love cabbage dishes of any kind, but this stuffed red cabbage is so beautiful, and unusual...it's a must try!
p.s. I just made a sweet and sour red cabbage side dish last night, it was so good!

Elisabeth said...

This is so strange...left a comment about 5 minutes ago, went to your twitter page to let you know, because it disappeared, now I'm on another blog and your comment section just popped up, so I'm giving it another shot!
Love the red cabbage, never used it for stuffing, so beautiful and delicious looking. I must try this!
Last night I made a sweet and sour sauteed red cabbage as a side dish with my chicken, it was real good, but your version is amazing...thanks for sharing!

oak dining tables said...

Wow! This is lovely! The colors are so nice and adorable! I must try this one.

 

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