Stuffed cabbage is a dish of minced meat, sealed in cabbage leaves, which can be stewed in a pan, a slow cooker, in a pan or baked in the oven. In any case, the taste of stuffed cabbage will largely depend on the taste of the sauce in which they are stewed, and on what sauce they are served with. Sauce for cabbage usually made on the basis of sour cream or tomatoes, there are mixed options. If you cook a delicious sauce, it will turn the cabbage, cooked according to the simplest recipe, into a culinary masterpiece.
Cooking Features
Sauces for cabbage rolls are of two types: on the basis of flour and without it. The technology of their preparation is different, but there are common features.
- To prepare the sauce, it is better to take fresh food. For example, if you choose between tomato paste, diluted with water, and fresh tomatoes from the garden, preference should be given to the second option.
- If you are making a sauce of fresh tomatoes, they must first be peeled off, boiled over. Seeds from the fruit is also desirable to remove. In this case, the sauce will be gentle and uniform, pleasant to the taste.
- The sauce will taste better if you add vegetables to it: fried onions and carrots, garlic passed through a press.
- The flour-based sauce is thick, and the longer it is cooked, the thicker it becomes. Therefore, it is used only as a gravy. Stew stuffed cabbage better in a sauce that has a more liquid consistency.
- The taste and aroma of any sauce depends largely on the spices used. Dill and parsley (fresh), cumin, bay leaf, black pepper and allspice are best suited for the sauce, which is to be served with cabbage rolls. That is the simplest seasonings in this case, the best. But they should be put in moderation.
Recipes for cabbage sauces are very different, so the technology for their preparation is also not always the same. Therefore, it is important to follow the recommendations accompanying a specific recipe.
Spicy sauce for stuffed cabbage
Composition:
- vegetable or meat broth - 0, 25 l;
- onions - 0, 2 kg;
- carrots - 0, 2 kg;
- tomato paste - 20 ml;
- ginger root - 10 g;
- garlic - 2 cloves;
- wheat flour - 20 g;
- butter - 80 g;
- Cumin - 5 g;
- dried dill - 5 g;
- a mixture of peppers, salt, sugar - to taste.
Method of preparation:
- Peel a piece of ginger root and cut it into thin plates.
- Peel the carrots and chop on a fine grater with small holes.
- Free the bulbs from the husk; cut them very finely with a knife.
- Finely chop the garlic cloves, put it in the mortar along with the cumin, add a little sugar and salt, and mash it thoroughly.
- Melt a piece of butter in the frying pan (a little more than half of the recipe), put ginger, garlic and cumin in the pan. Cook them, stirring for 5 minutes.
- Add chopped onions and carrots to the spices. Continue to fry all together for another 10 minutes.
- Add the tomato paste and sweat for another 5 minutes.
- In another frying pan, melt the remaining butter, fry the flour in it. Gradually pouring the broth and stirring lightly, prepare a light thick sauce.
- Pour the flour-thickened broth into the pan with vegetables, stir, then simmer for 10 minutes under a lid.
If by the time the stuffed cabbage rolls are ready, the sauce will cool, it will not hurt to be heated on the stove or in the microwave. Although some serve it cold.
White sauce for stuffed cabbage
Composition:
- meat broth - 0, 25 l;
- sour cream - 0, 25 l;
- flour - 40 g;
- butter - 40 g;
- salt, spices - to taste.
Method of preparation:
- Melt butter in a pan, fry the flour in it.
- Pour in the broth in small portions, constantly whisking the sauce with a whisk, so that its consistency is uniform, without lumps.
- After all the broth is poured, boil the sauce, stirring for 5-10 minutes, then add sour cream and continue cooking for another 5 minutes.
White sour cream based sauce is served cold or hot to the already prepared cabbage rolls.
Tomato sauce for stuffed cabbage
Composition:
- tomato juice - 0, 5 l;
- fresh tomatoes - 0, 3 kg;
- onions - 100 g;
- fresh parsley - 100 g;
- bay leaf - 2 pcs .;
- peppercorns - 5 pcs .;
- vegetable oil - how much will leave;
- salt, sugar - to taste.
Method of preparation:
- Wash the tomatoes, make cross-shaped cuts on their skin. Put the vegetables in boiling water and blanch them for a couple of minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon, transfer to a container filled with cold water so that the tomatoes cool faster. Peel them and cut the tomato pulp into small cubes.
- Peel the onions and chop finely.
- Wrap laurel leaves and peppercorns in cheesecloth.
- Chop parsley finely.
- Heat oil in a pan, put onion in it, lightly fry, add tomato pieces and fry them with onion for 10 minutes.
- Fill with tomato juice, put a gauze bag with spices. Simmer for 30 minutes. 15 minutes after starting the preparation, remove the spices.
- Add salt, sugar, parsley. Extinguish 10 more minutes.
The sauce is designed to serve ready-made cabbage rolls with it, but if they are poured over the cabbage rolls as soon as they take out the spices, immediately adding greens, salt and sugar, and then stewed cabbage rolls in this sauce will also be delicious.
Tomato-sour cream sauce for cabbage
Composition:
- carrots - 100 g;
- onions - 100 g;
- sour cream - 0.5 l;
- tomato paste - 50 g;
- olive oil - how much will leave;
- salt, pepper, fresh dill - to taste.
Method of preparation:
- Wash, peel and chop vegetables. Onions can be simply chopped, carrots are better to grate.
- Pour oil into the pan, put on fire. After a minute, put the vegetables and fry them, stirring, for 10 minutes.
- Add the tomato paste, salt, spices, finely chopped dill and put it all together for another 10 minutes.
- Mix the resulting mass with sour cream. Stir until the sauce turns a smooth color.
In this sauce you can stew stuffed cabbage, if you dilute it with water in a ratio of 1: 1. It is advisable to use part of the sauce for cooking stuffed cabbage, leave it for serving.
Cooking homemade sauce takes you not too much strength, but the dish with it will be much tastier.
