Golabki

• One large cabbage
• Two cups white rice with two cups water
• One large onion
• Two pounds of 85% lean ground beef
• Salt
• Pepper
• 6 to 8 Bay Leaves
• 1/3 stick butter
• 1 tspn flour
• 4 cups water of chicken bouillon

• Two cans of 28 oz tomato puree
• One small can of tomato paste
• 4 cups water with chicken and tomato bouillon

1. Core the cabbage and submerge it into hot water, core down. Flip when it gets soft. Begin removing cabbage leaves when they are soft and set aside. Continue flipping and removing leaves. This will take about 30 minutes to go through the whole cabbage.
2. When the cabbage is done and cooled a bit, cut off the spines from the cabbage leaves. Keep any bad leaves and cabbage heart for patching purposes later.
3. Combine rice and water when water is still cold and cook for about 20 minutes until water is mostly absorbed. Rice will still look mostly wet and a little soupy. Set aside and let cool.
4. Chop onion and fry until translucent and a little brown-ish.
5. Boil water and chicken bouillon.  Set aside.
6. Mix rice and onions, then add to meat by hand.  Season with salt and pepper.
7. In a large pot, put a layer of cabbage down on the bottom with bay leaves and pepper.
8. Roll meat mixture into a cabbage leaf, making the "package" longer and thinner.  

Try to shape them longer and thinner.	Fold the cabbage over and roll it up tight.

9. Layer into pot.  Top with pepper and bay leaves. 

Layer into pot.

10. Add chicken broth until the next to last layer is covered.

Add chicken broth until next to last layer is covered.

11. Add a covering layer of cabbage.

Top with a layer of cabbage leaves.

12. Put on high heat until boiling, then on low heat for 1 to 1.5 hours.

Sauce

1. Mix butter and flour in pot on low heat, mixing until smooth.
2. Mix in one cup cold water and mix until smooth.
3. Add tomato sauce, tomato paste, and half to a third cup water, garlic and onion powder, and the chicken and tomato bouillon mixture.
4. Let cook for half an hour on low heat. Add pepper and about half a cup of juice from golabki pot.

Excellent to freeze and rethaw.

All photos and text copyright Ryszard Kilarski, unless otherwise noted. Clip art, drawings, paintings are either free domain or copyrighted by the artists.