ADDICTIVE Herby Egyptian Cabbage Rolls

[Music] now that is what I call comfort food literals are wildly popular throughout the Middle East and Eastern Europe each country makes them slightly different and although I haven't tried every recipe update the Egyptian one is one of the best and if you've got some cold weather coming up you'll definitely love these there are two characteristics that said the Egyptian cabbage rolls apart from their cousins first is their size as they usually made no bigger than a finger this has the effects of increasing the Cabbage to rice ratio in each portion and so you'll get more of that lovely cabbage flavor in every single bite the second characteristic is that we usually don't put any meat in the filling other kinds of rolls or stuffed vegetables in the Middle East usually contain meat but in Egypt we go completely vegetarian I find that this accentuates the flavor of the herbs used and gives it a bright fresh flavor which is what I crave in the winter now to make this filling you'll begin by mincing a ton of herbs first up is Dill and you'll need about 100 grams for this recipe slice off the thick stalks from the bottom of the dill as you don't want to end up with chunks of fiber stalking your cabbage rolls I also like to pick out the medium-sized stalks like these but everything else is okay to be minced now on through this all with your knife until you've minced your Dill to a small size like this unfortunately you'll allow me to repeat the same thing with 160 grams of parsley slice off the big stalks then work your way through it and until it looks like this in total you should be left with about 100 grams of minced parsley and 60 grams of mint still after removing the stalks speaking of which you'll need the stalks in a short while so don't throw them out now take 400 grams of high quality canned tomatoes or fresh wine ripened tomatoes and pour them into a blender before pureeing until smooth this will be one of the two tomato ingredients we add and it will ensure that the cabbage rolls have loads of tomato flavor to make the filling add 3 medium onions to a mixing bowl which should be diced quite small so you don't end up with large chunks of onion in the filling now add two tablespoons of salt to the onions and two teaspoons of black pepper then mix This Together thoroughly until your onions are evenly coated for the rice we'll be using 2 cups of medium grain Egyptian rice and like I've mentioned a million times wash the rice until it runs clear I'd also recommend draining the rice so we don't add too much water to the filling once mixed add in 200 grams of tomato paste and mix again until your rice is this deep shade of red at this point you can add in 100 grams of chopped parsley and the 60 grams of top Dill then follow that with the Blended tomatoes finally we'll do something absolutely bizarre and we'll take a quarter cup of clarified butter or vegetable oil if you're vegan and will heat this until it is almost smoking then we'll pour this into the mixture and this is Egypt is called a Tasha because of the noise it makes mix this one final time and your filling is now ready to be used you can stuff any vegetables with this rice and they'll taste fantastic or you could even just cook this alone and enjoy a herbie tomato rice to make the cabbage rolls we'll obviously need some cabbage which is why I've got this flat Turkish variety its leaves are quite thin so they'll be easy to roll but any kind of cabbage should work for this recipe start off by peeling the outer layers of the Cabbage as these easily get bruised and accumulate dirt then you'll need to flip it over and cut out the core of the Cabbage which will make it easier to remove the rest of the leaves I find that the best way to do this is to trace each Leaf back to the core then push outwards on the core to separate the leaf and the Cabbage you kind of need to be delicate with the leaves when you do this as you don't want them to tear too much when you get to the center of your cabbage you'll find the leaves are white and pretty tough so keep these ones aside as we'll need to cook them a little longer it would be practically impossible to roll the leaves as they are so first we need to soften them by pre-cooking fill a large pot with boiling water then add in your trimmed parsley and Dill stems as well as one teaspoon of coriander seeds and one teaspoon of cumin seeds let this boil for about 3 minutes until the liquid is infused then you can add in about two to three cabbage leaves these need to cook in batches for about one to three minutes and you can test whether they're ready by checking if they flop around the stem like this when you're done cooking the leaves pile them or a tray and let them rest until cooled you can see we've cooked the leaves enough so that they can be rolled but they haven't cooked so long that they just tear and that's what you should aim for the next step is to cut your leaves into squares so that they can be rolled first you have to cut out the stem of each Leaf which makes it really tough to roll then you just cut it into squares about eight centimeter by eight centimeter or whatever size you want you'll definitely end up with a bunch of random shapes as well so just keep those aside and roll the square ones first luckily rolling them is actually quite easy but it can take some time to do place your square with the ribs or stalk facing upwards then add about a teaspoon of rice to the Cabbage use your fingers to spread this out into a cylinder shape then you just roll the square up until you've rolled it all like this there's no need to fold or pinch the edges of these rolls as you're doing them because we'll be laying them side by side in the pot so the rice won't fall out if you do end up with some rolls which are a bit too big for the filling then just trim them down to size after working your way through all your cabbage you'll be left with a stack about this big and there should be plenty of rolls to feed six to eight people finally I filled a bunch of small peppers with the remaining rice and that's just an easy way to get rid of any leftovers at this point you can cook the rolls immediately but you can also put them into some Tupperware and freeze them for up to 6 months to actually cook the cabbage rolls we need to arrange them in a pot like this first add a layer of trimmed cabbage stalks or leaves to the bottom of the pot which will act as a sacrificial layer in case it burns once you've got that fairly even lay your cabbage rolls in a spiral starting from the outside and working your way into the middle try place on a particularly thick stemmed rolls on the bottom layer then just keep adding more layers on top until you've used up all your rolls I ended up with four layers and a little left over just be aware that if you add any partial layers this can cause the layers to collapse once the pot is flipped over when you're ready to cook place the pot on the stove on medium heat and you're not going to add any liquid at this point cover it with a lid and as it heats up the moisture in the cabbage and rice will fill the pot with the liquid after about 10 minutes and just like magic the pot will be bubbling like so and you can now pour in some vegetable stock you want to pour this to just barely cover most of the rolls then turn the heat up to high and bring your pot to a boil once it's boiling like this turn the heat to low and cover it with the lid so that this can steam let this Steam for about 20 to 30 minutes then when the time is up take a roll out and try it if you've got a load of liquids still in a pot like this you can let it evaporate over low heat for a short while this can be served right away or if you want to give this a better chance of not collapsing let it rest and cool for about half an hour when ready place a plate on top of the pot then in one quick motion flip them both over finally go for the big reveal and fingers crossed your one stays upright these cabbage rolls are best served hot the even room temperature they're an absolute winner [Music] I'll be real with you these cabbage rolls are a ton of work but I promise they're so worth it the Herbie tomato rice with the cabbage is a perfect combination and I can easily eat 40 rolls in one sitting now click here to see another of my favorite winter Comfort Foods foreign [Music]

Channel: Middle Eats

Views: 927,124

Keywords: Middle Eats, middle eastern food, egyptian food, middle eastern cuisine, cabbage rolls, middle eastern cabbage rolls, cabbage rolls recipe, cabbage rolls vegetarian, cabbage rolls vegan, Egyptian cabbage rolls, vegan cabbage rolls recipe, mahshi koromb, malfouf, malfouf mahshi, malfouf recipe, cabbage dolma recipe, cabbage dolma, comfort food, winter comfort food, cabbage recipes

Id: U_J4e58eoyY

Length: 6min 55sec (415 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 21 2021