Cathy, I wish I could have had a taste of your cabbage rolls. They sound great and I think the bacon and even the tomato chutney sound good, however non-traditional they may be.

I had many sarmale in Romania in 1973 and they were all made with sour cabbage leaves. Somewhere, I have pictures of a weekend market in Bucharest where barrels of cured cabbage leaves, pickled cucumbers, green tomatoes and peppers and were being being sold. Another thing I recall was that the filling of the sarmale included some kind of cured meat - it almost tasted like corned beef, but it must have been pork, and perhaps there was some coriander in the mix that made me think of corned beef. Or perhaps it was some sausage with fresh pork, as Puckjam recalled, upthread.

Puckjam wrote:Good looking recipe. There appears to be many variations of stuffed cabbage from the East Euro Area's. We are Croatian and make Sarma. My family way is to use beef, pork, and fresh polish taken out of the casings, along with the eggs, rice, onion, garlic, savory, S&P.

The Romanian sarmale I had were always served with a thin tomato sauce - not much to it, really, more like the tomato soup that Geo mentions above.

Cathy,
Thanks for giving me a couple of these delicious cabbage rolls!
The sourness is something not unheard of in northern European cuisine, e.g. sauerbraten, but it often ends up with a very tough piece of meat, instead a nice soft dumpling-like package. I feel that you could put this in front of someone from anywhere in the world and they would say, "aha, this is how food is supposed to be: fat, sour, salt, umami." I'm looking forward to finishing off your care package for lunch today.

Joel,

You made my day! I was worried you might not like them. I know you like sauerkraut, but maybe not the combination.

Thanks!

Regards,
Cathy2

I realize you people are in love with each other, but golubtsy with sour cabbage is a plain nonsense. However, there is a quite Russian soup called "shchi" and it is easy to make. Throw in the water smoked pork hugs or smoked bird wings, bring it to the boil and add pickled cabbage. Boil it for an hour and then add potato or rice. Add spices, parsley, onions as you wish. But golubtsy is something else. Not to mention there is no Kiev style stuffed cabbage anywhere except for LTHforum

Lenny007 wrote:I realize you people are in love with each other, but golubtsy with sour cabbage is a plain nonsense.

I understand why Russian cuisine is your gold standard. However, there are many cultures who have stuffed cabbage, which conflicts with your experience. A few years ago for Chinese New Year, there was a Chinese variant of stuffed cabbage.

If some family wishes to call their family recipe, "Kiev Style Stuffed Cabbage,' they can.

When I was in Moscow, I had friends who insisted my Oma's German Apple Cake was an American Apple Pie. They were wrong, but it made them happy to think so.

Cheers!

Cathy2