Polish Golabki or "Golomki" (Cabbage Rolls) Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 soft white or Italian cabbage - 75 dg ground meat (combination beef and pork) - 1.5 soaked bread buns with a slit across the top - 1 small onion - 2 eggs - 2 chicken bullion squares - salt - freshly ground pepper - can of tomato concentrate - 2 tablespoons of sour cream (18%)
(This will make about 12 Golabki)
Directions:
Prepare a pan with cold water. In a large pot boil 3-4 liters of lightly salted water. Cut out the middle of the cabbage, and, delicately, so as not to rip them, remove the leafs one by one (about 15-20 pieces). Steam-boil the leafs in boiling water for a few minutes. Toughen the soft leaves in cold water. Carefully cut out any thick veins. (The leaves can be prepared a day earlier)
Prepare the filling: mix the meat, eggs, grated onion, and buns into a solid mass. Add salt and pepper to taste (it should be visibly peppery).
Melt the chicken bullion squares in 1.5 liters of boiling water.
Cover a big heatproof pot with the steam-boiled cabbage leafs.
Form oval portions from the filling, and place them on the cabbage leafs. Bend the sides of the leafs and roll them into tight rolls (Golabki). Arrange tightly in the heatproof pot, seams downwards. Pour the bullion over the Golombki (up to 3/4 of the height - leave out the rest of the bullion). Preheat the oven to 150 C, place the pot inside, and cook for 1-1.5 hours. Flip the Golombki half-way through.
After cooking, drain the sauce from the Golabki and add it to the rest of the bullion. Add the tomato concentrate and the sour cream.
Pour the tomato sauce over the Golabki, and cook for an additional 20-30 minutes.
This sounds like an Americanized version. True Polish golabki are not made that way with the above ingredients.
Boil a cabbage. Remove the leaves.
Boil rice but cook it not completely till almost done. al dente brown onions till lucent and then add salt and pepper to taste and the onions to the rice. Mix this into ground beef. Take a spoonful of mix and put it in center of leaf and fold over end then roll up the rest of the way. Place in roasting pan and bake till done at about 350F. I do not like mine swimming in a sauce or water. My mom use to mix half water and half ketsup and pour over just top when baking for moisture. When you can cut through the cabbage with a fork and it is like butter they are done.
My mother does it slightly different too lol. I think everyone does. We have it with Heinz creme of tomato soup and plenty of fresh bread.
Gołąbki (Golomki)
3lbs on minced beef 4 large or 5 medium white onions 500g of white rice 2 large drumhead cabbages
Fill a large deep stock pot 2/3 full of water and heat, but do no boil.
Finely dice the onions and fry in plenty of fat until they are softened and have lightened in colour, but do no allow them to brown. Once the onions are softened remove them from the heat and leave to cool.
Place the minced beef into a large mixing bowl and season very generously with salt and a little pepper.
Measure out the rice into a large jug and rinse the rice with boiling water from the kettle. Repeat this 3 or 4 times until the rice is thoroughly washed and a lot of starch has been removed. Once washed, leave the rice to one side to cool.
Strip the outermost leaves from the cabbage and discard. Take a sharp knife and remove the bottom of each cabbage, removing approx 1 ˝ inches. Score and then remove the core of the cabbages so that the leaves can be separated from one another much easier later. During this process be careful not to damage the leaves.
Once the core has been removed add one cabbage at a time to the pot of hot water. Leave the cabbage in the water for around 5 minutes before attempting to remove any leaves. After 5 minutes or so, begin to gently remove the outer leaves from the cabbage, one at a time, again being careful not to damage any other leaves. Once a leaf has been separated leave it in the hot water for 30 seconds or so to soften further. After this period the leaf can be removed and set aside to cool. Continue to remove the leaves until they become too small to make suitable parcels. Save a few of the leaves that are too small to be used later. Repeat this whole process with the 2nd cabbage.
While the cabbage is cooling add the cooled onions and rice to minced beef and mix thoroughly by hand until they ingredients are well combined.
Using a sharp knife remove the thickest part of the rib from each cabbage leaf. The rib should not be totally removed just reduced in size. The leaf should retain its round shape.
Discard the hot water in the pot. Place a steaming wrack in the base of the now empty pot and cover the rack with pieces of cabbage leaf that were too small to make parcels.
Once the leaves are ready, spoon a portion of the mince, rice and onion mixture into each leaf and spread evenly along the rib of the leaf. Once satisfied, fold the leaf from the sides first and then from each end to make a parcel. Repeat this process until there are no more leaves left or the mince mixture has been exhausted. Position the parcels in the pot starting from the centre and then in tightly packed layers until all parcels are in the pot.
When all parcels are completed, cover with a further layer of cabbage leaves that were too small to make parcels. Now cover with boiling water from the kettle (may require 2 full kettles of water). Place a plate on top of the parcels and press gently to force any air out and pack the parcels even tighter. Place some weight on top of the plate and top up with boiling water so that the plate is covered with 1 - 2cm of water.
Bring the water up to the boil and then reduce the heat to medium and cook for a further 1 ˝ hours.
2 LBS. HAMBURG 2 LARGE ONIONS 1 CUP UNCOOKED RICE 2 CANS CAMPBELLS TOMATO SOUP, MIXED WITH 2 CANS WATER
COOK RICE IN SAUCEPAN, YOU WANT 1 CUP RICE PER LB. OF HAMBURG. DRAIN IF THERE IS ANY WATER LEFT. IN SKILLET, SAUTE CHOPPED ONIONS UNTIL NICELY BROWNED. IN LARGE MIXING BOWL, MIX THE HAMBURG, FRIED ONIONS, RICE AND SALT & PEPPER TO TASTE.
FOR STUFFED PEPPERS: 8 TO 10 PEPPERS , CORE THEM, AND STUFF WITH ABOVE. IN ROASTING PAN, MIX 1 CAN TOM. SOUP WITH 1 CAN WATER AND ABOUT 2 TBS. OF CINNAMON. ARRANGE PEPPERS IN PAN, AND THEN POUR ANOTHER CAN OF SOUP, WATER & CINNAMON MIXTURE OVER PEPPERS. COOK AT 350 FOR 1 TO 2 HRS. , DEPENDING ON HOW MANY PEPPERS YOU ARE MAKING...LARGER AMOUNT TAKES MORE TIME TO COOK.
FOR STUFFED CABBAGE: PLACE A GOOD SIZED HEAD OF CABBAGE IN LARGE POT; HEAT TO BOILING AND SIMMER UNTIL YOU CAN PEEL OFF THE LEAVES ONE BY ONE. LET COOL.
FILL LEAVES WITH MEAT MIXTURE, OVERLAP EDGES OF LEAVES TO MAKE BUNDLES. PLACE IN ROASTING PAN. COVER WITH TOM. SOUP MIXTURE. (I DON'T USE CINNAMON IN THIS) COOK ABOUT 1 ˝ TO 2 HRS. AT 350.
Again, for every Polish cook, there is another golombki recipe! I use the hamburg, onion, bread, salt, pepper and egg. Stuff the pre-cooked cabbage leaves. Layer them in a large (as my Mom would say, "britfana" - excuse the spelling) baking pan. Then, she would cut some salt pork into tiny little cubes and 'render' it in a fry pan and then pour the entire mixture - fat and all - over the golombki, cover and bake. No tomato sauce or ketchup here.
Alternately, to "American-ize" the dish, leave the salt pork and put slices of bacon all over the tops of the golombki and then bake.
I like to boil the cabbage till soft. Peel off the leaves and fill with ground meat( beef and pork ), rice and diceed onion mixture " no exact measurements just feel what you are doing" Roll them up and stick with afew toothpicks to hold it together. put it it a deep pot with half water and half tomatoe soup/ tomatoe sauce and let it boil for 4 hours covered the first two hours. Then let it simmer for one hour. Also like to add lamb shank and pork neck bones. Just a couple of easy steps and let the stove to the rest. Serve with some good homemade bread and red wine and you're good to go.
I have to make mine with the lesser fat content because my daughter has to be on low fat diet, so we have to use lean ground round or sirloin hamburger. and I dont add the pork because of the fat.
even my mother had used only hamburger, but me being third generation, some of the recipes are gone, and I just do what my mother had taught me but only with the fat taken out of the meals.
we all eat the same, because preparing differently would make a headache for me so I just do it like it is suppose to be for our daughter.
Hey! I just made those, I told my hubby to take emm to work, but he forgot, I should have froze them, but forgot <~me bad. so they went to the GB disposal.
I have a bad habit of cooking for like thirty people.
I like cooking and would love to have a go at Golabki, but all this sounds kind of complicated. Does anyone have a tried and tested quick and easy method.. and how long does it take to prepare it?
use half pork, half beef... don't cook the rice; pour boiling water over it to rinse... longer cooking time for the whole thing, but sooo much yummier ^_~ for the sauce, best way is to use a can of tomato sauce and a can of paste. Also, cut carrots (peeled) into rings about 1/2" thick and put around the bottom so the cabbage doesn't get burned. Put golombki in first, then pour water up to the bottom of the topmost layer Then add the tomato sauce/paste and some chopped up cabbage leaves not used as wrapping (the tiny inside ones)
Just some tips ^_^
Go-whomb-key with both the o's pronounced as in 'go' and the stress on the middle syllable That's the closest i can get it phonetically using (more or less) english words
Just wondered if anyone out there used buckwheat in these recipes as I remember my dad doing it this way, no tomatoes but a chicken stock also smoked fried bacon cut into tiny pieces mixed into the beef/pork & buckwheat filling............possibly a Ukrainian or regional version of this recipe.
Hey there. It is not really complicated, but IS time consuming. I have a cheat version that tastes the same, but without all the effort. You can use any of the recipes on this site, but instead of doing all of the "stuff" just cook the meat (use whatever you want and keep the fat if you want, or not if you don't) onions and rice, but instead of cooking the cabbage as indicated, just slice or shred the head of cabbage and cook it in a pot of salted water, add all the ingredients together and heat. the final heating process on how much the cabbage is done. I cook all the ingredients till they are almost done (with the exception of the onions and rice) and then when I add to the pot I just need to cook for about 15 mins on med-low until the cabbage is done. Its all just mixed together instead in little loafs. You can also place into a casserole dish, cover with either canned tomatoes or tomatoes sauce and bake at 325 for about 25 mins. hope this helps.
Hi. I'm sure all of us think their mum's galabki are best in the world. To me, the secret is in boiling galabki in the tomato sauce. Mix beef and pork with lots of fried onion and half-boiled rice (more meat than rice), season it generously: pepper is very important and also bullion powder or crushed cube, add some paprika powder if u like. Make the cabbage parcels, put really fat bacon in the bottom of the dish, than some loose leaves and put the galabki in layers on top. Now, use the water from the cabbage to make sause: put a can of chopped tomatoes and some tomato puree into it, add salt, pepper, all the seasoning u like and pour it all into the dish with your golabki. Simmer them in the sause for about an hour. In the end add some creme frache or any sour creme to thicken it. YUMMY!
This is our families americanized version. We brown the meat slighlty first, usually hamburger and pork but have also done a 50-50 mixture with ground turkey to reduce the fat. Do all the other stuff mentioned with the cabbage. Bake with 1 can tomato soup, 1 package onion soup mix, 2 soup cans of water and some red pepper flakes... Yummy
From a local polish church's recipe book put out by patrons, back in 1963 and 1968, (Sacred Heart Church, Batavia, Ny)
mix hamburg, rice, onions, stuff in cabbage rolls, you know the drill. But the traditional toping was condensed tomato soup, (not mixed with water), and sometimes cream of mushroom. When i was a kid, i loved it with just the tomato soup way. Baked slow in oven.
My family recipe is about the same as the others: ground beef, onions, rice. Except we cut bacon into small cubes to be cooked and added to the beef. De-vein the cabbage leaves, boil, then spoon in the mixture, wrap them and put them in a baking pan. However, we use the left over grease from the hamburger and bacon to stew sauerkraut and tomatoes into a gravy to be poured on top of the stuffed cabbage while it bakes. Variations include but not limited to adding to the mixture of meat,onions,and rice have been: breadcrumbs, egg whites, oatmeal, black olives, green peppers, and a small amount of kremska.
*** i have also heard that you can if your planning ahead to de vein your cabbage leaves, soak them in water for ten minutes, then layer them between pieces of wax paper to be frozen. So when you take them out of the freezer to thaw, the will be limp as if you had boiled them.
One thing I remember when my Mother made them using the standard recipe (ground beef, onions and rice) is she would cook them in the oven at a lower heat but for a much longer time -- basically you couldn't possibly overcook them -- I'm talking 3 or 4 hours. The cabbage was always tender and meat was quite juicy.
I'd love to make some but lately I've been keeping away from starch, so rice and bread are out. (yeah, I know, what kind of person who claims he's Polish doesn't eat starch?)
Can anyone suggest something that could be added to the meat instead of bread or rice? I'm just afraid that without it, the meat won't really "bind" properly and will wind up being too dry.
Can anyone suggest something that could be added to the meat instead of bread or rice? I'm just afraid that without it, the meat won't really "bind" properly and will wind up being too dry.
gołąbki with no rice aren't gołąbki.... with only meat and cabbage, you can start making bigos... :)
