Genuine German Cooking: Cabbage Roulade with Parsley Potatoes

Today, I am presenting a German cooking recipe, that is 100% typical. The best part about it is that you can use all kind of cabbage as long as it has leaves that are big enough, the two most common variants are with white cabbage or with savoy cabbage. Please do not use red cabbage, that's a no-go :-)

Ok, the two most famous variants are made with white cabbage or savoy cabbage, I must admit that I do prefer the savoy cabbage due to the taste.

The following recipe serves 4 people. For 2, simply only take half of it. This main dish does taste better on the next day after being warmed up, by the way. So we always eat it on two days.

Ingredients

* 1 bread roll from the day before or a hand full of oatmeal
* 8 of the biggest leaves of the cabbage
* 3 teaspoons of granulated vegetable broth
* 1 to 2 onion(s)
* 500 g minced/ground meat
* 1 egg
* salt, pepper, paprika
* 5 tablespoons of oil
* 500 g potatoes
* 250 ml (or one cup) of cream
* one hand full of parsley
* 50 g butter

If you do not like parsley, you do not need to use it. Plain boiled potatoes are also fine. Some even like to eat it with rice or noodles. We prefer mashed potatoes.

Preparation

1. Soak the bread roll in water or milk. If you use oatmeal, skip this step.
2. Wash the cabbage leaves. Blanch them in water with 2 teaspoons of the granulated vegetable broth.
When finished, keep the broth and remove the stem from the leaves.
3. Peel the onion and cut it into small pieces. Mix it in a bowl with the ground meat, the soaked bread roll (without the water or milk), the egg and salt, pepper and paprika. Divide into 8 equally sized balls.
4. Now wrap each meat ball with one cabbage leaf and firmly fix the packets with butcher's string.
5. Heat the oil in a roasting tin or huge pan and gently roast the packets from all sides.
6. Mix about half a litre of the vegetable broth you had used for blanching the cabbage and add the remaining teaspoon of granulated vegetable broth. Then add one cup of it to the roasting tin.
7. Put the lid on the tin and let it gently braise for about 20 minutes.
8. Meanwhile, peel the potatoes. Wash them and let them boil for about 20 minutes in salted water.
9. Take the cooked cabbage packets our of the broth and put them into the oven on a small temperature to keep them heated. Add the remaining broth into the tin and let it boil up. Add the cream. In case it is too thin, you may add some powdered roux or gravy thickener.
10. Wash and dry the parsley and chop it. Heat the butter in a pan and mix the potatoes with the parsley
 

I must admit, this recipe is a bit more time-consuming than what I usually cook, but if you prepare it for two days, you don't have much to do on the second day.