Tuna Cabbage Rolls

This goes down as one of my more spectacular failures. We had about half a cabbage head left from some potstickers A made over the weekend, and I thought trying to come up with a cabbage roll recipe would be fun. I hold that, conceptually, this was a good idea, but there was one fundamental flaw: Napa Cabbage.

Long, narrow cabbage leaves do not rolls make. You need a wide-leaf cabbage instead. It quickly became apparent that the size simply did not allow for rolling anything. That, and I think I over-boiled the leaves, so it wouldn't really roll without tearing anyway. What we were ultimately reduced to was a plate of a tuna/rice mixture with bland, boiled cabbage on the side. All in all, a depressing dinner.

But... the theoretical recipe, that I still believe can work...

1 head Cabbage
1 can Tuna
about 2 c cooked Rice
Lime
1 Onion
Ginger
salt and pepper
red pepper flakes

Boil the cabbage for 5 minutes or so - get it tender and rollable, but not overcooked. Steaming might work as well.

Drain the tuna, dice the onion. Mix tuna, minced ginger, salt, pepper, red pepper, and any other spices that might marry well with the flavors. Squeeze a lime wedge or two over it. Sautee the onion over medium heat for 3-5 minutes, increase the heat, add the tuna and sear for a couple of minutes. Remove from heat, mix in rice.

Heat oven to 375.

(I didn't get to this part, so I'm just speculating here, extrapolating from some recipes I consulted) Put a little tuna rice mixture on a cabbage leaf, roll tightly and place in a baking dish. Add liquid about an inch deep to the baking dish and cook for 30 minutes. Water would work as well as anything, but I bet white wine with some vinegar, maybe, would work great, too.

I also had plans for a sauce that was kind of like a mayonnaise. I had reserved some of the onion, and had a couple of egg yolks I needed to use. I was going to whisk the yolks with some champagne vinegar and salt, then slowly add in a little oil (maybe sesame). Then I was going to flavor it with onion, some minced garlic, maybe a touch of soy sauce and some lime. It was going to be delicious... A is suspicious of anything that involves uncooked egg yolks, maybe moreso egg yolks that have been sitting in the refrigerator for 3 days, and the whole thing had collapsed by this point, anyway, so we went without the sauce.

It could work, though.

Chicken in a Pot

So, I got this great enameled cast iron dutch oven on Friday and wanted to try it out. So I went for the basic Chicken in a Pot, with a variation of cabbage and sour sauce (this particular one was from How to Cook Everything, but there's a recipe for it in pretty much any book). This was my first whole chicken, but it was pretty easy to manage. Not much to say about it, really, except that it's sort of time-consuming on the prep side. It made lots of leftovers and has lots of possibility for variation.

Cabbage Soup

Went pretty much by-the-book with this Rustic Cabbage Soup recipe, paired with a rosemary garlic bread that I picked up at the store. I used chicken broth that I had on hand rather than the vegetable stock mentioned. It all tasted quite good, with about 3-4 leftover servings of soup.

Notes: I was thinking of next time trying it with some meat - either cook up a few strips of bacon beforehand and put it in with the beans. Kielbasa would pair with the cabbage pretty well. I also thought of replacing some of the stock with a bottle of dark beer. This is also a good basic recipe for more substantial variation - keep the cabbage and onion as the basis and go off into the wide veggie world...