Greek Cabbage Rolls/ Lahanodolmades

[Music] hi guys welcome back to dimitra's dishes so today I'm going to be bringing to your really delicious recipe that's been requested for a long time now and it's finally going to make its debut it's like a nodal masses which are Greek cabbage rolls and we make our cabbage rolls we serve them with a beautiful delicious creamy lemon egg lemon sauce there's no cream in it but it is creamy and I'm going to show you how that happens if you've been watching and if you've been with us for a while I've made a Greek lemony chicken an orzo soup and that's pretty much almost the same kind of sauce that's going to go on top we're going to go over the ingredients and then we're going to get started I'm going to take it I'm not going to go over all the ingredients because this is this recipe gets done in a few steps so we're going to begin with the cabbage I have one big head of cabbage over here in some boiling water to the boiling water I'm just going to add some salt to get some flavor in it and you want to make sure to find the biggest head of cabbage as you can get back in the day and even in Greece it's hard to find right now but even in Greece they have these big huge cabbages that were very very loose they wasn't they weren't tight like this one and they were especially for making cabbage rolls it would be really easy to use those now it is kind of hard to find those so if you can find a really big one go ahead and get the biggest one you can find it's the only thing finer the really small cabbages you're going to have to pick up about two or three and do this in batches now I cut the core out or most of it of the cabbage I'll try to get a little bit more so try to get most of the core out and then you're going to put it in the salted boiling water you want the whole side down in the water careful not to burn yourself and we're going to let this cook for about 15 minutes on one side then I'm going to flip it over on the other side and the leaves are going to start to kind of fall off and if they're not falling off you're going to want to kind of help take them off with the fork and I'm going to show you how we're going to do that a little bit so that's going to go for 15 minutes and while that's happening we're going to go over our filling ingredients now this is we're using ground beef you can use any ground meat that you like I'm going to use ground beef it's lean meat lean ground beef I'm using onion a little bit of rice dill parsley salt pepper olive oil and we're going to have a little splash of water in there that's it the filling is very simple but you want to get really nice fresh herbs because the herbs that are what's going to give it a lot of the flavor so I just picked all the leaves and I took the stems off of my parsley and my dill I want to keep that ready I'm just going to cut my onion in a couple of pieces and I like to do this in my food processor if you have a food processor this is a great time to take it out and use it it just makes life so much easier because you don't want chunks of onion you want it to be almost a puree because the lighter the filling is going to be the better it's going to taste and why not just put everything in there and chop it up together I'm going to do it in two batches if you don't have a food processor you can go ahead and chop this up with with a knife but I wouldn't chop the onion up with a knife I would take out like a box grater and grate it like that because again you want it to be sort of like a puree consistency and have some tissues handy because if the onion is strong you might cry a little bit but I'm going to put this all in my food processor and I'm just going to pulse it I'm going to put half of my onion in first and once it's chopped up really well we're just going to add in our parsley take it out and put it in a big mixing bowl and then we're going to the same thing with the other half of the onion and the dill I'm going to puree the onion first and then I'll add the dill in and until it's a really nice mushy consistency go to our herbs and onions we're going to add our ground beef a little bit of salt and pepper the rise about 1/4 cup or so of olive oil and then I'm just going to mix it up really well and you really want this consistency to be very very wet you don't want it to be dry so I'm going to mix it first and then I'm going to add a little bit of water it'll probably need about 1/4 or 1/2 a cup of water it all depends on your onion how how much juice it released but I'll show you what it needs to look like but it smells so good you can smell the dill fresh dill and parsley just have a really nice smell so to this I'm going to add a little bit of water and I think it's needing a tiny bit more olive oil a little bit more salt and that's it just like that our filling is completely ready I'm going to set it aside wash my hands and I'm going to start taking the leaves off of the cabbage so it's been boiling for 15 minutes my meat filling is ready now we're just going to be waiting for the leaves to cook now there's really no other shortcut other than doing it this way and what you're going to be looking for is for the leaves to separate easily they kind of become a little bit translucent just like this if you have a bigger pot go ahead and use one it will probably be a little bit easier than this but I'm going to let this cook about 10 more minutes so that way the bottom part which was really the top part cooks also and the leaves will release easily I'll put them in this big bowl and then I'm just going to drain them out so the excess water comes out but as you can see they're already coming out very very easily now boiling cabbage and boiling brussel sprouts is not one of the most delicious smells you can have going on in your house so if you have any tips on how to get that smell out of the house I mean I've used candles and incense and all that please post them down below and I'd love to hear them from you it's delicious and everything so if you do have an outdoor barbecue grill with like a little like still top area where you can boil it cook on go ahead and do it outside that's going to be great otherwise open up all your windows and get the smell out of the house it's going to be delicious but the smell does linger for a while so when you kind of get to the center of the cabbage that you're going to have to play with it a little bit and kind of pull it apart with the force very carefully so you don't burn yourself with the hot water just a little bit kind of help it release and we when you get down to this little small part you don't have to do anything else just let it kind of cook a few more minutes and then you can release them once they cool down just that way you don't burn yourself but the leaves that are done you don't want them to get too soft because they're going to continue to cook once they're stuffed so just like that once they're released and they're a bit translucent take them out of the water put them in a big bowl and then we're just going to go on right now and we're going to strain these so our cabbage leaves are sort of cooling over here on the side I'm emptying out my pot I'm just going to use the same pot why dirty another one so I'm just going to chop these up I have two carrots here and a few celery and these are going to just be like on the bottom of the pot they're going to be like a bed for our cabbage also that way they're not in direct contact with the bottom of the pot which the heat is going to be hitting and it was cool they're still cook not cool very delicately in Jamaica you can put a small onion in here if you like it adds a little bit more sweetness and I like so I'm just going to leave it out this is going to make a really beautiful broth so we have the vegetables cut up now we're going to start our cabbage rolls now we're going to take the nice big leaves you're going to want to cut the stem the rough stem part out the very bottom part this makes it hard to roll up and if you leave this on it tastes good and everything but it's going to make them break up and then the filling is going to come out and you're going to have a mess you can save this and eat it later as a snack or you know just put it in like a stock or something like that so you want a nice big leaf a tablespoon full of filling depending on the size of your leaf so over here we have a nice real big leaf so I'm putting a nice big full tablespoon of filling and then I'm just going to roll it up just like that beautiful set it aside and don't worry about these like shredded pieces these are going to be used to cover up our vegetables and they definitely will not go to weight again we're going to cut the bottom part off a nice heaping tablespoon and just keep in mind that the rice once it's cooked it's going to expand so you don't want to make this too tight where it bursts open but you do want to make it tight enough where it stays put in the pot just like that roll it up and we're going to keep going filling and rolling if I get to a very very big leaf then I'm just going to cut it and turn it into two pieces but so far the leaves are looking really nice okay so all the ripped up pieces of cabbage that I found and I just use them to coat these vegetables and then now I'm just going to take all of my rolled-up stuffed cabbage and I'm just going to fit it in here really nice and snug and you can form a second layer if you have to now I'm just going to take all the rest of these really small pieces and I'm just going to create another layer on top and then I'm going to get a plate because this does need a weight to keep it down so that way when it's cooking and simmering over the stove then you don't want them to open up and fall apart so you want to get a plate that fits the inside of this when we go and grab one so I'm just going to put the plate on top like that and press it down a little bit and then I'm just going to fill it with water just until the water comes all the way up to the plate just like that once you see the water then you know you have enough we're going to turn the heat on high just until it comes to a boil once it comes to a boil I'm going to reduce the heat to a very slow simmer and then I'm going to let this cook for between 30 to 45 minutes and I'm going to show you it looks like when it's ready okay so that cabbage rolls have been cooking for 40 minutes and when that happens the color of your pot will change really I know a little corny but I prepared a pot beforehand so that way this will go a little smoother and I didn't have the same color so your cut your pot will not change color but anyway so once it's done cooking you're going to take that carefully take the plate off of the top and if you can remove the top leave carefully now we're going to go on to make our egg lemon sauce once these are out and they're still going to be lots of water in here and you need that because it's going to create a really beautiful sauce once we add the egg lemon and cornstarch which are the ingredients that you're going to need to have okay so we have three egg yolks here I'm going to put two heaping tablespoons of cornstarch a little touch of olive oil this is classic egg lemon sauce and some lemon juice fresh lemon just never use bottled lemon juice when you're making the sauce that that stuff is just good for cleaning we've said it before and I'll say it again fresh is best so we're just going to mix this up until the cornstarch is completely diluted and then we're going to temper this mixture and temporary this means we're going to raise the temperature of it so that when we add it to the hot sauce it'll blend and become nice and creamy and not a scrambled egg of the sauce now you can totally take out all of the cabbage rolls and then do this with just the liquid in there but I never do it it works perfectly this way that's extra work and then they're cooked and they're so tender that they can fall apart and you know what all that hard work to go down the drain now you'll feel it when that when the liquid starts to feel a little bit warm then you know it's ready to add to the pot so now I'm just going to pour it into the pot like that and you can't mix it because it's full of the cabbage rolls so what you want to do is just take the pot and just give it a nice shake so that way the egg lemon mixture distributes evenly and we're just going to let it cook until it comes to a boil and we're going to leave it alone right after it comes to a boil I'm going to turn the heat off and then I'm just going to taste it for seasoning and then we're going to let it sit here it is it's boiling I'll just shake it a little more just like that I'm going to turn it off let it sit right now it looks like it's not thick enough but the beauty of this sauce is as you know the more it sits the longer it sits the thicker it gets and you want to be a nice creamy consistency I'm going to let it sit for a little bit clean this area give it a taste put it on the plate and show you what it looks like that is delicious nice and light and refreshing this is traditionally cooked as more of like a fall or winter dish so all my friends on the opposite side of the world in Australia like Malcolm and everybody else is watching you guys are going to want to make this because it is cooling down over there I ate it mostly in the winter but I can eat this all year round because it's very light and refreshing traditionally again you would let this fit at least 30 minutes or so to thicken up a bit but I'm just going to take it out to show you what it looks like as is these are very soft for some sauce on top all you do all you need is a nice toasted crust a piece of whole-grain bread and you are good to go let me cut into it this should be really soft and it sure is don't need a knife see what the inside looks like if you can see the meat is really nice and light it's not compact and and that's because we the mixture was really nice and wet when we made it and that's what you want yours to look like as well I'm going to take a bite that right there is perfection lights very aromatic from the herbs and put this knife down and the meat is really nice and soft the rice is perfectly cooked the lemon gives it a nice tang and it's creamy without having cream in it you're going to want to check this recipe out the recipe is always in the description box down below takes you directly to the website wwe.com let me know in the comments below what you want to learn how to make next let me know what you thought of this recipe how do you guys make it I know some people make it with a tomato sauce if you want me to teach you how to do that I can do that as well in an upcoming video thumbs up this video if you liked it subscribe because you definitely don't want to miss any of the recipes that are coming up lots of delicious recipes coming your way thank you for spending time with me today and I'll see you all next time bye everyone

Channel: Dimitra's Dishes

Views: 412,586

Keywords: cooking show, greek food, greek recipes, Dimitra Khan, euro bakery and cafe, easy recipes, Λαχανοντολμάδες

Id: meqYcu7ilgQ

Length: 17min 50sec (1070 seconds)

Published: Mon May 08 2017