Sarmale is a typical Romanian dish, which in English terms can be translated as stuffed cabbage rolls.
For the preparation of a serious quantity of
sarmale,the following are needed for the composition:
- one big pickled cabbage (the one bought weighted almost 3 kilograms, including the brine it was kept in).
You can find pickled cabbage at the East-European groceries that you might know. We usually buy it from a Turkish shop in Trier, on Neustrasse (20 meters from the junction with Kaiserstrasse)
- 1 kilogram of minced meat (it can be pork, veal, or mixed. For those on a special diet, you can use also chicken)
- 100 grams of rice (depending on your taste, you can put more or less rice)
- 2 chopped onions
- 1 big grated carrot
- 2 eggs.
- 2 spoons with sunflower oil
- laurel (leaves)
The preparation starts by mixing well all the ingredients mentioned above and seasoning according to taste with salt, pepper and paprika:
Once you're almost done with mixing, you can also add some tomato juice:
- cut the cabbage leaves carefully, to obtain stripes of cabbage as large as a palm:
- place a small portion of meat mix onto the cabbage leave and roll it to obtain an hermetic cylinder like shape:
- the small pieces of cabbage that result upon cutting the cabbage are used as a first layer on the bottom of the boiling pot:
- place the rolls in successive layers in the pot:
- once you reach the top of the pot, place another layer of chopped cabbage leaves and 5-6 tomatos:
- add on top some extra tomato juice, additional spices and water to completely fill in the pot
- finally, boil them for approximately 2-3 hours at moderate heat. The key is to boil it until the cabbage leaves become tender:
- we recommend eating sarmale with fresh cream.
Bon appetit !
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