Stuffed Cabbage Lasagna

Submitted by mersaydees

"This is based on a recipe from Lydie Marshall's cookbook, Slow-Cooked Comfort. She says of this recipe, "When I have leftover meat from a stew, I grind it and freeze it.... With ground pork, I make a pork and cabbage lasagna: layers of ground meat and cabbage leaves with a white sauce on top. Because the pork is already cooked, this is a relatively quick dish to prepare." I think this is a good cross between lasagne and cabbage rolls with a very appetizing appearance. This dish can be prepared several hours ahead of time before being placed in the oven."

 

• Ready In: 1hr 30mins
• Ingredients: 14
• Serves: 8

ingredients

• 3 lbs savoy cabbage
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 lb ground pork or 1 lb leftover pork, that you've ground
• 1 cup onion, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 2⁄3 cup tomato sauce (I used Tomato Sauce #335847 recommended by Lydie Marshall)
• salt
• black pepper, freshly ground
• 1⁄4 teaspoon crushed hot pepper flakes
• 1⁄2 cup grated parmesan cheese or 1/2 cup grated gruyere cheese
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 2 cups white sauce (I used White Sauce #334376 recommended by Lydie Marshall)
• parchment paper, for covering the dish before placing in oven

directions

1. Discard the tough outer cabbage leaves. Using a small pointed knife to help disengage the leaves, gently separate the remaining leaves from the stalk.
2. In a stockpot, bring 6 quarts of salted water to a boil. Add the cabbage leaves and return to a boil. Boil until the leaves are semisoft, about 10 minutes.
3. Drain the cabbage in a colander set in the kitchen sink and let cool while you make the ground pork stuffing.
4. In a large nonstick skillet, heat the oil over medium heat and brown the ground meat for 2 minutes; add the onion, garlic, tomato paste, and tomato sauce and stir. Sprinkle with salt, freshly ground pepper, and hot pepper flakes. Cover and simmer over low to medium heat for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally to make sure it's not sticking to the bottom of the pan.
5. Set aside 2 tablespoons of grated cheese. Using a wooden spoon, whisk the egg into the ground meat with the remaining cheese.
6. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
7. Organize the cabbage leaves into three piles. Layer 1/3 of the cabbage leaves in a buttered 3-quart rectangular or oval ovenproof baking dish. Sprinkle with salt and spread half the ground meat over the cabbage. Layer another 1/3 of the cabbage leaves over the stuffing and add the remaining meat stuffing. Cover with the remaining cabbage leaves.
8. Pour the white sauce over the cabbage and sprinkle with reserved cheese. Cover the dish with parchment paper.
9. (At this stage you can wait several hours before baking it. You may want to turn off the oven unless you're using it for something else!).
10. Bake the casserole in the middle of the oven for 15 minutes; discard the parchment, and continue cooking uintil the cheese browns slightly.
11. Serve piping hot.

Reviews

[Dienia B.]

ok this is a very good casserole i used recipe #465720 with this i used cheapo cabbage and because of reviews boiled it til soft and hamburger worth making again its a pretty dish but then i think cabbage is pretty lol

 

[bluemoon downunder]

Delicious so when we taste-tested this, I was so glad that I'd decided to double the recipe! I used a pork/veal mix that I pretty well always use for meatball, meatloaves etc.. The cabbage, well there was lots of it (I used 11/2 cabbages), but I'm not entirely sure that it was double but there was an ample amount for layering between the meat layers, and it was savoy cabbage. I do recommend using savoy cabbage if you're making this recipe. It's tastier than other cabbages and cooks really well. I added three chopped leeks to the garlic and onions (just love the taste of the three together), I used MarraMamba's Recipe #273976 and mersaydees' Recipe #334376. Because we have zero tolerance of anything hot, I omitted the hot pepper flakes and because I've found that something in tomato paste disagrees with me, I used dried Australian bush tomatoes in its place (one of my standard substitutions). Thank you for posting this recipe, mersaydees. Really hot weather is setting in and we're going to enjoy being able to simply use some of this from our freezer stockpile! We stashed away eight servings for two - and that was after enjoying our generous taste-testing portions! Made for POTLUCK TAG.

 

[Kayne]

This was wonderful, definitely a do again. I made a few mistakes, for example I couldn't find and savoy cabbage, so I bought a regular one. The leaves were a little tough, probably I didn't pre-cook them enough. I made my own white sauce, but put about 1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese in with it - that work out well. Then I sprinkled some more over the white sauce. (My DH and I both LOVE cheese!). Other than that, I did follow the recipe. Next time I will either get the savoy cabbage, or I will boil the leaves a lot longer, but as I said, that was my fault. Thank you, Mersaydees, for a great recipe.