Everyone knows what cabbage rolls are. Cabbage envelopes with meat filling and sauce - a popular Russian dish. But not all housewives can cook it. Sometimes stuffed cabbage rolls around, become limp, go dry or simply do not work. Why is this happening?
Why not stuffed cabbage juicy?
Stuffed cabbage is not always tender and juicy, sometimes the filling is dry, which spoils the whole impression of the dish. Most often it turns out that way, if baked in the oven on a baking sheet. Cabbage envelopes with meat are not intended for this. They are prepared exclusively in liquid, most often it is a broth or sauce, but preliminary roasting in a pan in oil is allowed before stewing. This technique greatly improves the taste of cabbage.
What else could be the reasons:
- A lot of rice. The croup absorbs the liquid from the meat and the sauce itself. Very often cooked rice is added to the stuffed cabbage until it is completely ready, as a result it dries the filling.
- Dry meat. Stuffing for cabbage, especially with the addition of cereals, it is desirable to make a juicy and fatty meat. You can simply twist an additional piece of bacon or cut, add the bacon. Sometimes pasted onions in a large amount of fat, which also adds juiciness.
- No vegetables. Just rice and meat together cannot turn out juicy, so vegetables are always added to the stuffing for cabbage rolls. They are laid fresh, or first lightly fried in a pan.
If the minced meat for the cabbage is initially dry and the fat or fat is not at home, you can simply enter a couple of tablespoons of mayonnaise or sour cream, rub a piece of butter.
After turning, the cabbage rolls are covered with enough water or sauce so that the rice has something to absorb.
Why can not twist stuffed cabbage
For cooking stuffed cabbage you need to take a large head of cabbage to get good leaves. Otherwise, it will not work. The second point - the cabbage must be steamed. It is difficult to roll hard leaves, they crack, break, neat envelopes fail.
How can you stew cabbage:
- In the classical way in a saucepan with water. It is advisable to make deep cuts around the stalk. The head of cab is lowered, the outer leaves are softened, then they are removed. If necessary, down again.
- In the microwave. Head out into a tight bag, tie, leave a hole. Send for a few minutes in the oven until the leaves soften.
Before folding cabbage rolls, it is important to cut off all large and thick strands from sheets. This is convenient to do the usual knife on the cutting board. In addition to solid leaves, the problem may be hiding in a large number of fillings. You should not put a lot of stuffing, the envelope should be easily folded, completely hide the filling in itself.
Why stuffed cabbage rolls
They turn around and absolutely do not want to keep the form of cabbage rolls, which are formed from fresh or badly steamed cabbage leaves. How to prepare them is written above.
But cabbage rolls can turn around for another reason:
- Poorly packed. It is necessary to put the envelopes tightly to each other, first in one layer, then on top of it, you can make a strip of vegetables, often just spilling the layers with a sauce with carrots, onions, and tomatoes.
- The seam is not there. It is necessary to put rolled-up stuffed cabbage seam down, then they just will not unfold in the cooking process.
- Plenty of water, active boiling. Cabbage rolls are made not to cook, but to stew. In this case, the dish is brought to a boil over high heat, and then it is stewed with a barely noticeable boiling.
One can meet in the network recommendations to fasten stuffed cabbage with a toothpick, to wrap with threads. But these are not the best ways. Since the dish will be stewed in liquid, the wooden splinter will become limp. Threads are difficult to remove when serving. Therefore, it is still recommended to learn how to fold neat envelopes, properly laid.
Important! Since the cabbage rolls fit tightly, they can burn. To avoid this, put the remaining sheets or the middle of the head, cut into slices, pour the sauce on the bottom of the pan.
Why did the cabbage roll?
Sometimes cabbage rolls when stewing are limp, falling apart, the dish looks like porridge. Why it happens? Most often the problem is in cabbage. Summer and early autumn varieties are not suitable for folding envelopes. They boil very quickly, dissolve in liquid, turn out to be soft and completely do not retain their shape.
Sometimes cabbage rolls become limp and fall apart if they are cooked with too intense boiling. It is necessary to closely monitor the cooking. As soon as the dish boils, the fire needs to be reduced.
Tip! If the cabbage seems to be soft, then it is recommended that the cabbage rolls be fried in a pan, only after that send them to the pan and stew. Or laid in the form, pour sauce, cook under the foil in the oven.
Why stuffed cabbage tasteless, fresh
Cabbage rolls, like borsch, cabbage soup, cabbage soup, cabbage soup, like acid. In the fresh form they will not be tasty. That is why for pouring used tomato sauces or sour cream. Just in the water or in the broth the dish looks more like the taste of boiled cabbage soup. If the tomato is not sour, then you can squeeze some lemon juice into the saucepan or pour in fruit vinegar.
Spices also affect the taste. They need to be added to the filling, as well as in the sauce. Any mixes for vegetable and meat dishes, different types of pepper, greens, adjika will do.
Be careful with salt. Stuffed cabbage with rice in the filling absorb a lot of sauce, it is very easy to over-salt them.
If there is no large cabbage
Often the problem of cooking stuffed cabbage is cabbage or delicate curves. In this case, something worthwhile and neat twist in any case will not work. What to do? Cook lazy cabbage rolls!
They are different:
- In the form of cabbage cutlets. They are fried and stewed on the stove or baked with sauce (sometimes cheese) in the oven.
- In the form of stews in a frying pan or in a cauldron. Rice, ground beef and cabbage are used to stew a thick dish similar to stuffed cabbage.
- In the form of a puff dish. The ingredients are placed in a saucepan or stew pan in layers, stewed until ready. Before serving, you can stir or gently dial with a spatula, without disturbing the layers.
Lazy cabbage rolls have their own advantages: no need to soar cabbage, turn off, spend a lot of time. If the classic dish does not work, then why not cook this option?
