Everyone knows what cabbage rolls are. Cabbage envelopes with meat filling and sauce - a popular Russian dish. But not all housewives know how to cook it. Sometimes cabbage rolls unfold, become sour, go dry or simply fail. What is this happening for?
Why are cabbage rolls not 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 this 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 frying in a pan in oil before stewing is allowed. This technique significantly improves the taste of cabbage.
What else could be the reasons:
- Lots of rice. Krupa absorbs liquid from meat and the sauce itself. Very often rice is added to cabbage rolls not cooked until cooked, and as a result it dries the filling.
- Dry meat. Stuffing for stuffed cabbage, especially with the addition of cereals, it is advisable to make from juicy and fatty meat. You can simply twist an additional piece of bacon or chop, add bacon. Sometimes onions are sautéed in large amounts of fat, which also adds juiciness.
- No vegetables. Just rice and meat together cannot be juicy, so vegetables are always added to the stuffing for stuffed cabbage. They are laid fresh or first lightly fried in a pan.
If initially the stuffing for stuffed cabbage turns out to be dry, but there is no fat or fat at home, then you can just introduce a couple of spoons of mayonnaise or sour cream, grate a piece of oil.
After folding, cover the cabbage rolls with a sufficient amount of water or sauce so that the rice has something to absorb.
Why can not twist cabbage rolls
For the preparation of cabbage rolls, you need to take a large head of cabbage to get good leaves. Otherwise, nothing will turn out. The second point - you need to steam the cabbage. Hard leaflets are difficult to roll, they crack, break, neat envelopes will not work.
How can I steam cabbage:
- The classic way in a pan with water. It is advisable to make deep incisions around the stump. Head down, let the outer leaves soften, then they are removed. If necessary, lower again.
- In the microwave. Place the cabbage in a tight bag, tie it, leave a hole. Send to the oven for a few minutes until the leaves soften.
Before folding cabbage rolls, it is important to cut off all large and thick veins from the sheets. This is convenient to do with a regular knife on a cutting board. In addition to hard leaves, the problem can be hidden in a large number of fillings. Putting a lot of stuffing is not worth it, the envelope should be easily folded, completely hide the content in itself.
Why cabbage rolls unfold
Turned around and completely do not want to keep in shape cabbage rolls, which are formed from fresh or poorly steamed cabbage leaves. How to prepare them is written above.
But cabbage rolls can turn around for another reason:
- Poorly stacked. You need to lay envelopes tightly to each other, first in one layer, then on top of it, you can make a gasket of vegetables, often just pour the layers with sauce with carrots, onions, tomatoes.
- The seam is not located there. You need to lay rolled cabbage rolls with the seam down, then they definitely will not open in the cooking process.
- A lot of water, active boiling. Stuffed cabbage is not cooked, but stewed. In this case, the dish is brought to a boil over high heat, and then it is stewed with barely noticeable boiling.
You can find on the network recommendations to fasten cabbage rolls with a toothpick, wrap with thread. But these are not the best ways. Since the dish will be stewed in a liquid, wooden specks become limp. Threads are difficult to remove when serving. Therefore, it is still recommended that you learn to fold neat envelopes and stack them correctly.
Important! Since cabbage rolls fit tightly, they can burn. To prevent this from happening, put the remaining sheets or the middle of the head, cut into pieces, into the bottom of the pan, pour over the sauce.
Why stuffed cabbage
Sometimes, when stewed, the cabbage rolls become limp, fall apart, the dish looks like porridge. Why it happens? The most common problem is cabbage. For folding envelopes are not suitable for summer and early autumn varieties. They boil very quickly, dissolve in liquids, turn out to be soft and completely retain their shape.
Sometimes cabbage rolls become sour and fall apart if they are cooked with too much boiling. It is necessary to carefully monitor the cooking. As soon as the dish boils, the fire must be reduced.
Advice! If the cabbage seems soft, then it is recommended to fry the cabbage rolls in a pan, only after that send it to the pan and simmer. Or we put it in a mold, fill it with sauce, and cook under the foil in the oven.
Why stuffed cabbage is tasteless, fresh
Cabbage rolls, like borsch, cabbage soup, stews and other cabbage dishes, love acid. In fresh form they will not be tasty. That is why tomato sauces or sour cream are used for pouring. Just in the water or in the broth, the dish is more like a soup with boiled cabbage. If the tomato is not sour, then you can squeeze a little lemon juice into the pan or pour fruit vinegar.
The taste is also influenced by spices. They need to be added to the filling, as well as to the sauce. Any mixes for vegetable and meat dishes, different types of peppers, herbs, adjika will do.
Care must be taken with salt. Stuffed cabbage with rice in the filling absorb a lot of sauce, it is very easy to salt them.
If there is no big cabbage
Often the problem of making cabbage rolls is small cabbage or crooked, tender sheets. In this case, something worthwhile and neatly twisted in any situation 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 a stove or baked in sauce (sometimes cheese) in the oven.
- In the form of stew in a pan or in a cauldron. A thick dish that tastes like cabbage rolls is stewed from rice, minced meat and cabbage.
- In the form of a puff dish. Ingredients are placed in a pan or stewpan in layers, stewed until cooked. 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 steam cabbage, curdle, spend a lot of time. If the classic dish does not work, then why not cook this option?
