Azerbaijani Entree
CHESTNUT STUFFED CABBAGE LEAVES
INGREDIENTS – STUFFED CABBAGE
¾ cup fresh cilantro
⅔ cup fresh dill
1 medium tomato
1 large onion
1 cup chopped chestnuts*
1 pound ground lamb or beef
⅓ cup rice
⅛ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 large cabbage head
INGREDIENTS – BROTH
1 tablespoon butter
2 teaspoons sugar
1¼ cups lamb or beef broth (Broth should match meat used above, if possible.)
1½ tablespoons vinegar
* = Chopped chestnuts can be found online.
Serves 6. Takes 2 hours.
PREPARATION – STUFFED CABBAGE
Dice cilantro, dill, and tomato. Mince onion. Add cilantro, dill, tomato, onion, chestnuts, lamb, rice, cinnamon, pepper, and salt to large mixing bowl. Mix with hands until well blended.
Cut off bottom of cabbage head. Cut out as much of the white, solid core as you can. (Doing these two steps will make peeling off leaves later much easier.)
Add enough water to cover cabbage head to large pot. Bring water to boil using high heat. Carefully add cabbage head. Reduce heat to medium and continue to boil until leaves can be pulled back with a fork. Carefully remove cabbage. Drain. Wait until cabbage is cool enough to peel off the cabbages leaves.
Peel off cabbage leaf. Put 3 tablespoons lamb/chestnut mix from bowl in middle of cabbage leave. (The exact amount will vary with the changing sizes of the cabbage leaves.) Shape mix into a log, leaving 1½” uncovered along edges. Fold the short ends of the leaf to cover lamb/chestnut log. Then tightly roll leaf from the bottom. Repeat for remaining leaves save one. Reserve one leaf.
PREPARATION – BROTH
Melt butter in pan using low-medium heat. Stir enough to prevent bubbling, Remove from heat. Add sugar, butter, lamb broth, and vinegar to mixing bowl. Stir until well blended
Place reserved cabbage leaf in large pot. Add stuffed-cabbage logs to pan. Place them as closely as possible to each other to prevent unfolding. Slowly pour broth over cabbage logs. Place a lid over cabbage logs. (The lid should be a bit smaller than the pan so that it sits on the cabbage logs. (This also prevents unraveling.) Simmer at low heat for 45 minutes or until cabbage leaves are tender and the filling becomes tender.
TIDBITS
1) You can cook chestnuts in a pot.
2) You can cook them quite a lot.
3) You can cook them on a beach.
4) You can cook them with a peach.
5) You can cook them in an oven.
6) You can cook them with a coven.
7) But not one with witches.
8) For though they might grant riches.
9) They like their meat raw.
10) And that you can’t unsaw.
11) You can speed them in an electron collider.
12) Or something even much, much wider.
13) You can heat them with a torch.
14) You can heat them on a porch.
15) You can cook them in a house.
16) You can cook them for your spouse.
17) You can cook them while on a chair.
18) You can cook them everywhere.
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
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