Stuffed cabbage leaves

Do you like cabbage? I have seen many people making  any possible yet not sensible excuses to discard cabbage off  their menu and meals. I used to make  the weirdest  excuses to escape meals made by any type of cabbage, a few years ago I found   that most kind of cabbages  consist of beneficial  health factors that I  couldn't ignore them at all , since then I started to train myself to eat cabbage..cabbage can be eaten  either in raw form in salads or cooked, here you can find a very good article on cabbage ..I suggest you to read it completely .  



 Today  was one of my cabbage days...I made this dolma or in farsi we call it dulmeh..I made it veggie style,

ingredients:

1 big cabbage ..you need to choose a very special cabbage   the cabbage leaves should be not too hard  to break or not too soft ....

filling:
2 medium size onions  finely chopped
1/2 cup small or medium grain  rice
1/2 cup halved  chick peas (soak them  in water for a few hours , drain them  and cook for 10 mins   )

(Alternative: bulgur wheat  or you can use both of them  together)
1/2 cup celery ...washed and chopped
1/2 cup cilantro (coriander)  washed and chopped
1/2 cup  chopped fresh dill 
1/2 cup chopped leek      .... I always use persian leek..
1 table spoon  dried mint leaves...
 1 table spoon  tomato paste
 2 tea spoon turmeric
 pepper and salt to taste
2 table spoon canola oil+ 1 table spoon butter
...............................................
2 table spoon vinegar
2 table spoon  maple syrup or you can use golden /corn syrup
2 table spoon sumac  .. optional  if you like your dulma  to taste something between sour and sweet...

1 cup chicken broth (optional) you can use water only

direction:

First prepare the stuffing. saute chopped onions in canola oil and butter ..

...in a mixing bowl . combine all the ingredients for the filling, use your hand to blend them well,   set aside.

Meanwhile, prepare the cabbage leaves, Fill a large sauce pan with water and bring it to a  boil, cut the core of the cabbage and pull off the leaves , plunge green cabbage leaves to the boiling water , after 5 mins or until  the leaves soften, usually 5 mins is enough, drain the leaves on a suitable  colander and run  cold water through them.

 
Tips:you may  add salt to the boiling water too


place the soften cabbage leaves on a plate and cut them into rectangular form. ,.rectangular size is optional  I like it  narrow and small to make  slim cabbage rolls)
 

place about 1 table spoon of stuffing in any side of teh  cutout leaves and then roll them tightly.

Arrange the damaged leaves on the bottom of the  stew pan or a medium size sauce pan then place the cabbage rolls on top ..close together,  make several layers,

TIPS:

now dissolve tomato paste in 2 table spoon  hot water, add it into mixture of vinegar and syrup and 1 cup of chicken broth or water, pour the mixture over the  cabbage rolls,  in case you wish to add some sour taste to the dulma, in  a small sauc epan  bring  a glass of water to  a boil and add  sumac and let it simmer on a medium/low heat for about 5 mins or more ..be careful to not  boil the mixture of sumac and water at this stage)..then drain the sumac and keep the water....because we need the reminaing water. not the sumac itself...add the sour water to the liquid mixture.....

The liquid part poured over the rolls   should come to a little less than half of the rolls, but not more since  the rolls will release their own juice either, after that  put a heat resistant plate on the rolls to keep them tightly close together, place  pan's lid and bring to boil, then reduce the heat to low or medium  to simmer until the cabbage leaves are tender enough and filling is cooked.


Noosh-e  jaan... Noosh olsun,  enjoy it...