Golubtsy

I have made this before, but the first time I wrote up this recipe was the first time I'd made it and I was more than a little hesitant about whether it had turned out right, whether it was good, whether it was worthy ...

Golubsti with Garlic Baked Turnip

I've made it a few times since and I'm pretty confident now, freestyling as I go ...

Golubtsy is a Russian peasant dish which is so good it deserves to be eaten by Royalty!

Simply put, it's minced pork in cabbage leaves. I like to keep the pork part as simple as possible and so I tend to just spice the pork with cayenne pepper and paprika - more paprika than cayenne pepper.

Tonight, I put in some shredded leek (leek and pork is sooooo good) and a little sauerkraut with carrot from my local Polish deli. Put into context, 2lbs of meat makes 6.

No cooking ... just mix the ingredients cold.

Put a few large cabbage leaves into boiling water to soften. You don't want to cook them! I immerse in boiling water and turn them over after a couple of minutes.

Snip out the stalk in a long triangle.

Place a portion of meat mixture on the the leaf and fold one side of the cut-out and then the other over ... push the meat in and roll over.

You will now have a cabbage triangle ... hopefully, a few of them.

I used Savoy Cabbage - the outer leaves are largest and the inner leaves smaller. I made two very large, two large and two medium. Stuff with diminishing portions of meat.

Top up with chicken stock. I had some bone broth left over, so that was really easy ...

Cook for a couple of hours at 180C (so, erm ... 350F? 375F?) ... ish ... it's not like the exact temperature really matters.

Meanwhile, make up a sauce.

I like finely chopped onions, garlic and a can of peeled plum tomato with some chilli and a lot of parsley.

Cook this down so it is not wet.

Hungry? Serve up!

Spread out the tomato sauce onto a plate and place the Golubtsi one by one onto the plate in diminishing size order as the size of the leaves dicatated.

Cover with a good glob of Smetana!

This is a soured cream. The keen-eyed among you will notice that this is a Polish Smetana, so apologies to any Russians reading, but it's all I could get hold of.

Smetana is a fattier soured cream than regular soured cream, so perhaps just mix in a good tablespoon of double cream into a regular soured cream if you can't get it.

Indulge in a bottle (or two) of sensible indulgence - Baltika #7 from Saint Petersburg.

Na zdorovje!