Vegetarian cabbage rolls

Ingredients for 6 servings:

• 1 head of white cabbage
• 300 g rice
• 6 carrots
• 200 g tomato paste
• 2 onions
• 1 dashes lemon juice
• e.g. parsley, fresh or frozen
• salt and pepper
• dill
• Thyme
• 350 ml red wine
• 3 bay leaves
• 5 juniper berries
• 3 carnations
• 200 ml cream
• e.g. chili pepper(s)
• 3 tbsp cornstarch
• olive oil

Instructions

Working time approx. 1 hour 30 minutes; Cooking/baking time approx. 2 hours; Total time approx. 3 hours 30 minutes

vegetarian and gluten-free

Remove the outermost leaves from the cabbage and cut out the stalk. Do not cut the cabbage into pieces. Bring water (approx. 2.5 liters) to a boil in a tall pot and add salt. Then add the white cabbage and secure it in the center with a fork. Gradually, using a second fork, carefully loosen the leaves from the cabbage and then boil for about 4-6 minutes. Remove the leaves from the salted water and refresh them in cold salted water. Tip: Since the white cabbage is quite large, remove the leaves in several stages. Do not discard any damaged leaves; you will need them later. If the leaves become too small towards the end, set the center piece aside. You will need this later as well. Also save the cooking liquid. For the filling, finely chop the onions and grate the carrots (leave one carrot!). Briefly fry the onions in olive oil in a pan and add the dash of lemon juice. Then add half of the tomato paste, the carrots, and the rice (the rice does not need to be boiled first!). Briefly mix the mixture together and season with salt, pepper, dill, and parsley. Now trim off the hard end of the largest and prettiest leaves of the white cabbage and fill the leaves one by one. Don’t use too much filling per leaf, as otherwise it will be difficult to roll up. Instead, place the filling on the end of the leaf and fold the end over, then fold the leaf over from the right and left, and roll up the whole thing. Set the filled leaves aside for now. Place any broken leaves on the bottom of the roasting pan to prevent the cabbage rolls from burning. Stack the rolls in the roasting pan. For the sauce, chop the remaining carrot, halve the remaining cabbage (the remaining heart), and cut out the hard middle part. Then chop it up. Briefly fry the remaining tomato paste in olive oil in a high pan or saucepan, then add the carrot and half of the chopped cabbage. Sauté everything for about 5 minutes, then deglaze with red wine. Allow the red wine to reduce. Then add the remaining cooking liquid from the white cabbage (should be about 2 liters). Season the sauce with bay leaves, juniper berries, thyme, salt, pepper, chili, and cloves and simmer for about 30 minutes. Pour the sauce through a sieve into another pot. Press out any liquid that remains in the sieve with a pestle and discard. Add the cream, the other half of the cabbage, and the cornstarch to the sauce (dissolve this in about twice as much water in a separate container beforehand). Pour the sauce over the cabbage rolls (they should be completely covered and no longer peeking out) and place the lid on the roasting pan. Cook in the oven at 170°C (fan oven) for about 1.5 hours. The sauce will now be well absorbed. This goes very well with mashed potatoes, for example.