I'm a little...tentative...around cabbage. My mother cooked it really, really badly as a kid and that strong memory of soggy, limp cabbage just won't leave. :P I'm getting over it, but MAN ALIVE some of those photos make it look vile.

Look for pointed-head cabbage, it is much milder and I think, sweeter. My 82-year-old mom is NOT a fan of cabbage, but she loves the pointed head, cooked or raw!

how has bubble and squeak not made this list!?!? it's my favorite cheap comfort food and oh-so-delicious... i don't have a recipe off-hand, but basically it's cabbage, potatoes, and ham fried in a pan with butter, let it get a little brown and crispy on one side and flip to get crispy on the other... my mouth is watering just thinking about it!!

I love my mother's stuffed cabbage. must get the recipe this winter

link 7 and 8 are the same

Whenever I have cabbage to use up, I make Chocolate and Zucchini's Spicy Cabbage and Chicken Stir Fry. It is so delicious!

stuffed cabbage
the basic filling is:

1 lb. ground beef
1 lb ground veal
1/2 lb. pork
cooked, cooled rice, about 2 cups (leftover rice from a previous night's dinner works fine)
egg
salt/pepper
chopped onions/garlic [i hate onions so i omit them, but no haloupki recipe worth it's stuffing would not include them]

season ground meat w/salt & pepper, add chopped onions/garlic & egg, mix well. add rice, mix some more
steam the cabbage, trim off spine
stuff cabbage & roll (there's a little tuck with the ends when the leaf is rolled)

place into big pot & pour tomato sauce to cover. (for the basic recipe you can use a big ole can or two of tomato sauce & add water to cover.) throw in a pinch or two of sugar if you want to cut some of the acidity of the tomatoes.

cover the pot with a lid, put it on the back burner, bring to boil, then reduce heat and simmer for what seems like days. it's hard to overcook these. they were done when we pulled out a test roll & cut it open to make sure the meat was cooked through; i.e., the stuffing didn't have any 'pink' in it.

note: you can also bake in the oven, but my mom never did that. also, you can throw some mashed potatoes on top of the cabbage rolls & bake those along with the rolls. (i was always told the oven/potatoes was the way polish people made them. my family is from hill-country slovakia, and apparently they're top-of-the-stove peeps there.)

TO REMOVE THE LEAVES: my mom & grandma always boiled a huge pot of water. took a big fork & stuck it into the cabbage ... stem? core? ... dunked the cabbage into boiling water for 30 seconds or so, peeled back the outer leaves, repeat until all cabbage leaves are off the head. the bigger leaves, of course, are the ones that you use to stuff; the smaller ones were placed on top of the pile to cover the finished rolls and cooked in with the rest. i've been told by my aunt aggie that you can put the cabbage in the microwave for a minute or two, peel back the tender leaves, place the rest in the wave for a minute or two, peel back the tender leaves, repeat until done. i tried it once & ended up with a big mess, so i'm a dunk n' peel kind of gal.

REGARDING THE TOMATO SAUCE: i've taken to using v8 juice instead of plain tomato sauce, and i add some sort of beef boullion. knorr-swiss used to make a dry tomato-basil (formerly oxtail) soup mix which was excellent but that's been discontinued.

i sometimes omit the garlic from the ground meat mixture and just throw a handful of garlic cloves in to cook with the rolls. (i've also thrown jalapenos in there, so you might not want to emulate my improvisations.)

REGARDING THE FILLING: i can't always find ground veal, so that's optional. you can use more, just keep the proportions relatively even (1:1:1/2). so if you are making a bunch, 2 lbs ground beef, 2 lbs ground veal, 1 lb ground pork. i frequently substitute some form of sausage--anything from jimmy dean's to andouille--for regular ground pork.

the amount of rice is something i just eyeball. just make sure the rice has cooled before mixing as if it's hot, it will cook the egg while you're mixing the filling.

I'M LAZY: and somehow after rolling seemingly thousands of those things in my youth, i'm just no good at the 'tuck' anymore. so when my cousin told me about cabbage casserole, i was down with the plan. it's essentially the basic filling minus the egg, done in a big frying pan on top of the stove.

brown the meat mixture (without the rice), drain off any grease. throw in rice. quarter & then chop a head of cabbage, stir into the filling mixture. pour tomato sauce over to cover, cover the pan & simmer until cabbage is done, which is always longer than i think it should be. for some reason i generally throw in a can of campbell's condensed cheese soup. i don't make this nearly as soupy as regular cabbage rolls, but it's much quicker, infinitely easier, and pretty damn good.

Great post, I love cabbage! Its a huge part of my national cuisine (czech) and I can't believe so many people live without it o.O

napa cabbage = kimchi!