Cabbage rolls with millet

I haven’t really felt inspired to write long posts lately. So today will be short again. A recipe for stuffed cabbage rolls, probably version number 4 of this dish on my primitive pages by now. Today with millet: very delicate, with the faintest hint of mushrooms. Not spicy at all. Melt-in-the-mouth.

Unfortunately, that is what happens when I am in a shop and see a lovely small, neatly shaped, intensely green Savoy cabbage: I get the urge to make cabbage rolls. I am also very sorry, but you are unlikely to find cabbage rolls made with ordinary cabbage here. Of course, if you prefer that, feel free to replace the suggested Savoy cabbage with ordinary cabbage.

I warmly recommend these cabbage rolls.

At a glance:

Preparation time: 35 minutes

Cooking time: 2 hours (and reheating them afterwards does them good too)

Serves: makes about 25 cabbage rolls, so easily enough for several people

How many calories: as you would expect from a cabbage roll

Ingredients for delicate cabbage rolls with plenty of flavour:

• 500 grams of minced pork leg
• 2 boil-in-the-bag sachets of millet (200 grams)
• 5 medium button mushrooms
• 2 onions
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 1 small Savoy cabbage (about 1 – 1.5 kilograms)
• 1 pack of Black Forest ham (about 8 slices)
• 1/3 of a block of lard
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• ground black pepper
• hot paprika
• salt

Recipe for cabbage rolls with pork leg and millet:

As I have written not once, not twice, not three or four times… heh, you need to organise your work well when making cabbage rolls. Otherwise you will work yourself into the ground and make a right mess of the kitchen. I must admit it went very smoothly for me today, so I recommend a similar approach:

1. I put some lightly salted water on to boil for the millet. Once it was boiling, I added the two sachets of millet and simmered them over a low heat for 15 minutes.

2. While the millet was cooking, I put the minced meat in a deep bowl and seasoned it with salt, pepper and hot paprika. I mixed it with a spoon.

3. I peeled the onions, garlic and mushrooms. I diced them and sautéed them in a frying pan (in olive oil, but only a little, no more than 2 tablespoons). I cooked them over a low heat, so it took about 10 minutes.

4. While the millet was cooking and the onions, garlic and mushrooms were frying, I started taking the cabbage apart. Gently, so as not to damage the leaves, I removed them all and put them in the sink. I washed them thoroughly (especially the outer ones), transferred them to a large pot and poured boiling water over them. I left them for about 5 minutes.

5. By then, the onions were nicely translucent, so I added the contents of the frying pan to the meat. I mixed everything together.

6. The millet was cooked, so I drained it and added it to my meat filling. I mixed thoroughly. The filling was ready.

7. I put 1/3 of a block of lard in the bottom of a large pot. I drained the cabbage leaves in a colander and started rolling the cabbage rolls. Depending on the size of each leaf, I added 1 or 2 tablespoons of filling and rolled it up. I placed each roll in the bottom of the pot, packed snugly against the others.

8. After arranging each layer, I covered it with whole slices of Black Forest ham. I ended up with about 25 cabbage rolls. I put the remaining cabbage leaves on top.

9. I poured two glasses of water over the cabbage rolls and brought them to the boil. Then I covered the pot and cooked them over a very low heat, just gently bubbling away, for 2 hours.

The dish is ready. Enjoy!