Unstuffed Cabbage, or Cabbage Unrolls

I'm married to one of the pickiest eaters in America, which has made it all the more important to me to present our children with a variety of tastes and textures early on in an effort to keep their culinary horizons broad.  Thankfully, he agrees with my mission and has agreed to some very important rules:

1. Dad is not allowed to sneer at, say "Ew!" to or otherwise show any signs of revulsion to any food he is presented with.
2. Dad is not allowed to suggest in any way that vegetables are disgusting.
3. If the baby looks a little less than enthused with a first bite of a new food, Dad is not allowed to say, "I know, that's gross!" or sympathize in a manner suggesting that a second bite should be completely shunned.

So long as he applies these three simple rules to mealtime, my job is easy:  Cook without stereotypes.  That means to cook without stereotyping my child or the food.  One vegetable that I notice receives more undeserved hatred than most is cabbage.  I've heard it described as "Mushy," which immediately leads me to believe that those who primarily don't like cabbage have only had it poorly prepared, and are primarily children.  Though I can assure you that picky adults even think they don't like cabbage, despite having it shredded and added to salads for his lunch sometimes...

Cabbage could easily be described as a super-food.  It's full of antioxidants, it has anti-inflammatory properties, it's full of powerful enzymes that help keep your digestive tract healthy, and has been the subject of many studies regarding it's anti-cancer benefits.  Full of Vitamins A, K and C, folate and fiber, cabbage should be a normal part of anybody's diet.

Introduction to Cabbage

Up until today, my daughter has never had cabbage.  The opportunity never seemed to arise, and I'm sure in my earlier days of motherhood full of worry, I came up with the potential for gas as a reason not to give it to her.

I decided today to introduce it with a take on one of my favorite classics, stuffed cabbage. Stuffed cabbage traditionally contains a filling of beef and rice or barley with onions, wrapped in a boiled cabbage leaf and finished in a casserole dish with tomato sauce.  As it is primarily a Central European dish, it's not unusual to have it served with potatoes of some kind.

In making it baby-friendly, I tried to keep a fairly even ratio of meat to grains and cabbage, whereas you would normally get a large portion of meat in an adult version.  I prepared brown rice for the filling, but because my pans are horrible and let out too much steam apparently, it burned ten minutes before it should have even been done cooking, so I used whole wheat noodles in place of it.  I mashed a potato with butter and whole milk and served the Unstuffed Cabbage over it.  

Like my Inside-Out Ravioli, preparing pocketed foods for babies is the best, because you don't really have to stuff anything, but you still get the spirit of the dish!  

Unstuffed Cabbage, or Cabbage Unrolls

Ingredients

Half of a small yellow onion, chopped (the very small variety that fit in the palm of your hand)

Quarter of a small clove of garlic, diced

Equal portions of ground beef and prepared brown rice

A few good-sized leaves of cabbage

Tomato sauce, a low-salt commercial variety or homemade

Tiny sprinkle of pepper

Small pat of butter

Technique

1.  Melt the butter over medium heat in a pan, and then add the onions to caramelize, stirring often.  When they start to become golden, add the garlic.  Don't cook too much longer, as burnt garlic is horrifically bitter. Remove from heat, drain and set aside.

2.  Wipe remaining grease from your pan, and then brown your ground beef.  Sprinkle with a tiny bit of pepper, or any other spice you'd like to introduce your baby too.  Keep it extremely subtle, however, and do not add salt.  Drain your beef, and set it aside with your prepared brown rice.

3.  You can prepare the cabbage one of two ways:  Steaming or boiling.  Steaming maintains the most nutrients and enzymes and is the superior option, however.  Do not overcook, but cook it enough so that it's tender.  When this is done, set it aside as well. 

4.  Dice all your components - you don't have to use all the onions if it looks like too much. You can dice it all together, or do it separately.  I prefer to dice the beef separately to ensure that the pieces are small enough that she can chew them, and then dice everything else and mix it all together.

5.  Spoon the mixture back into the pan, add enough tomato sauce to moisten it up, and heat through.  Don't heat it too much; cooking in such small amounts and then dicing them cools your ingredients off quite quickly and you just want to warm them with the sauce.  Give it a quick taste to make sure it's not too warm, and then spoon over a small mashed potato and serve.

My daughter absolutely loved her first taste of Cabbage Unrolls, and when the bowl was empty, she kept pointing to it and looking at me with a huge grin on her face.  For her, that means "I want more!" and for me, that means "We have a winner!"