Blog-checking lines: November’s Daring Cooks’ Challenge had us on a roll! Olga from Effort Ness Lessly challenged us to make stuffed cabbage rolls using her Ukrainian heritage to inspire us. Filled with meat, fish or vegetables, flexibility and creativity were the name of the game to get us rolling! I made traditional frikkadels.
There is a saying, the gift that keeps on giving, which reared its ugly head when I started working on this recipe. I say ugly head, as the gift was not something positive and each time it gives back it is a negative experience for me. Frikkadels are a traditional South African dish, which I have blogged about before but the first time I made them I chose to leave off the cabbage leaves. I decided to use that recipe as a base for this Daring Cooks challenge and went and printed the recipe off with the confidence of knowing it works. Unfortunately, the recipe has been ‘attacked by a bug’ and so the ingredient list is not complete and the method does not relate to the ingredients at all! I really reworked the recipe to make these meatballs wrapped in cabbage and it resulted in a tasty supper and left over lunch for Dave and I. You have to be generous with the seasoning and these meatballs need to be served on a bed of rice or quinoa or even couscous to soak up the tomato juice.
Traditional Frikkadels
Ingredients
- 15 g butter
- 2 shallots chopped
- 1 clove garlic chopped
- 1 cm root ginger chopped
- 10 savoy cabbage leaves stem removed
- 350 g ground beef
- 30 mls mango atchar
- 30 mls fresh basil finely sliced
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper to season
- 1 400g tin whole cherry tomatoes
- Pinch fructose
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180° Celsius
- Heat the butter in a large frying pan
- Add the shallots, garlic, ginger and chilli and sauté until the shallot is soft
- Remove and set aside and leave to cool
- Blanch the cabbage leaves in boiling water and refresh in ice water to stop the cooking process
- Pat dry
- Once the shallots are cool, add them to the beef together with the atchar, basil and a generous amount of seasoning
- Roll the meat into 10 equal sized balls
- Wrap each ball in a cabbage leaf
- Pour the tomatoes into an ovenproof dish that has a lid
- Season and add the fructose
- Gently place the cabbage balls into the tomatoes, opening side down
- Season the top of the cabbage balls
- Cook for 20 minutes in the preheated oven
Click on the links for conversions and notes.
What I blogged:
- two years ago – Secret Santa Round Up
- three years ago – Cake Jewellery
Today, Dave and I are celebrating our 11th wedding anniversary. I am on leave until the 6th of January and will reply to blog comments then.
It is very popular in Poland as well. We call it “gołąbki” and it’s one of my favorit meals, of course when my mom makes it 😀
I love knowing the traditional names for familiar dishes, thank you Marta 🙂
Ooh yum – it’s been ages since i made soemthing like this. Perfect for the cold winter weather here!
It is a great winter dish!
This looks like such great comfort food! My mom always used to make stuffed cabbage and I never appreciated them until I had already moved out!
I only recently discovered just how tasty stuffed cabbage can be 🙂
I made collard green rolls with this same idea just the other day! I love these fun cabbage packages.
That sounds so good – I must have missed the post?
This looks like an amazing dish. Oh poor you a bug hit your website? yikes? Did you fix it? Hoping that tomorrow is a better day for you. Take Care, BAM
HI BAM, thanks for the compliment. I am not sure if the bug has been deleted – I am sure hoping so 🙂
I love the addition of the atcha Tandy. My mom used to make frikkadels most Friday nights and we used to eat them like hamburgers. Even your cabbage leaves like cute and compact 😉 xx
Thanks Tami, I just used what I had in my fridge 😉
Yummy! This looks both gorgeous and sounds tasty!
thank you Squishy 🙂
My grandmother used to make stuffed cabbage rolls which I loved…I know I would really like your frikkadels recipe.
So nice to know that this is something you are familiar with 🙂
These look SO good! We have something in Denmark called frikkadellar – pork and onion meatballs. 🙂 It makes me smile to see how close the names are. 🙂
I am sure these are influenced from the same region!
What a fun idea! These meatballs look awesome!
thank you Lilly Sue 🙂