This recipe comes from Edible Nashville.  I changed it up a bit just because I had a lot of turkey burger.  I always use my own broth.  I rarely serve beef, so I don’t have homemade beef broth.  I do however have a ton of turkey/vegggie broth I made after Thanksgiving.  This was delicious.  I thought it would last for 2 nights.  Alas, it is all gone.  Jim ate 5 meatballs; I ate the remaining 3.  Stuffed cabbage in the old days, you had to have boiling water and dip the cabbage leaves in one at a time as you stuffed them.  I have always loved the dish.  The first meal I made Jim after we were married was stuffed cabbage.  He sat down at the dinner table and said,”I used to throw up over this.”  The dish took me all day to make.  I answered, “If I cook we eat what I like.  If you cook, we will eat what you like.”  He has eaten everything put on the table since.  Everyone who says, my husband won’t eat this or that, cook it correctly and he will eat it.  

This was the most delicious version of stuffed cabbage I have ever eaten.  I will post the real version and my changes in ( ).

Ingredients:

1# large head Napa cabbage 

1# ground pork (ground turkey)

1 C cooked jasmine rice

2/3 C thinly sliced scallions

1 T fish sauce

1 t white pepper (black pepper)

1/2 t kosher salt

1 large carrot, shredded

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 1/2 C unsalted beef stock (homemade turkey veggie stock)

1/4 C oyster sauce

1 T toasted sesame oil

Chili crisp (optional)  (hot stuff, no)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F with the rack placed in the center.  Coat a 13 X 9” baking dish with cooking spray.  
2. Prepare the Napa cabbage; remove 18 large leaves from the head of cabbage.  Trim off 2-3 inches from the bottom of each leaf, where the vein is the thickest.  Pile the leaves on a microwave-safe plate.  cover loosely with plastic wrap.  Microwave on high for 5 minutes.  Carefully uncover the plate and cool the cabbage slightly.  
3. Place the pork in a large bowl.  Add rice, scallions, fish sauce, pepper, salt, carrot and garlic, mix well with your hands (I use surgical gloves on my hands).  Divide the mixture into 8 equal balls.
4. To stuff the leaves, arrange 2 leaves cabbage on a work surface with the narrower rib ends overlapping by and inch or 2.  Pace a meatball in the center of the cabbage leaves.  fold the left leaf over the filling and roll over to the right side to enclose the filling in a cylinder.  Arrange the filled leaves seam-dust down in the prepared baking dish.  Repeat with the remaining cabbage leaves and filling to form 8 cabbage rolls (you should have couple of extra leaves in case of tear.)  (The microwaving of the leaves is so much easier than the boiling water method of old.)
5. Whisk together stock, oyster sauce, and sesame oil in a medium bowl; pour over the cabbage balls.  
6. Cover the dish tightly with aluminum foil.  Bake until the tilling is thoroughly heated, flavors are married, and pork is cooked through, 1 hour.
7. Uncover the dish and bake until the liquid is slightly thickened, about 15 minutes; the sauce will be more like broth than gravy.  
8. Serve with chili crisp on the side if desired.

Active time:  25 minutes! Try 5 hours

Total time:  1 hour 40 minutes.  I think this was made up to get fools like me to make it.  

Serves 4, 5+3=8, all gone for 2 people.