Sarma

I think I posted recently that I was trying to make sauerkraut with whole heads of cabbage.  As a reminder and then follow up:

I recently had several heads of cabbage sitting in my fridge, but no time to shred and pound it to make sauerkraut. I also have some Serbian friends who love sauerkraut but were a bit disappointed by my "German sauerkraut" at Thanksgiving.  They did like my sausage and rice balls in sauerkraut at New Year's however, pronouncing in an approving manner that it is actually a lot like sarma.  Sarma is basically leaves wrapped around filling, and variations are found throughout eastern and southern Europe.  Dolmas, seasoned rice wrapped in grape leaves, even count.  Each region has it's own variation, and in Serbia sarma means fermented cabbage leaves wrapped around a meat and rice filling. Finally, I have a father-in-law whose mother used to make sarma to please his Serbian father and who was due for a visit in a few weeks.  

So, I decided to try to kill a bunch of birds with one stone - mainly by fermenting whole heads of cabbage to make sarma.

My cabbage turned out amazing!  When I first opened my crock three weeks after closing it up I was a little nervous, because it had a bit of a sharp smell on top of the sauerkraut smell.  Then I realized that sharp smell was garlic, and I dug in.  Mmmm, mmmm, mmmm!  Must include lots of garlic in all future batches of sauerkraut.  I couldn't stop eating the stuff - I just kept eating the leaves as I pulled them apart to separate the big ones that I could use for rolling sarma from the smaller ones.

George got his mother's recipe for sarma which basically boils down to a ton of meat with a hint of rice and some tomatoes wrapped cabbage leaves.

-3 pounds ground beef
-2 pounds ground pork
-1 pound ground smoked pork (except I don't know where to find something like that, and I had a pound of lamb in the freezer, so I used that instead.  It was pronounced an acceptable and delicious alterative)
-3/4 c raw rice
-some tomato sauce (I got a can of whole tomatoes in juice, pureed the tomatoes without the juice, and then added about 1 - 1 1/2 c of the tomato puree to the meat.  Enough to make it moist and add flavor, but not enough to make it goopy.
-salt and pepper to taste
-I also added a bunch of chopped onion.  I think this is part of the original recipe and very traditional.  I think it just was lost in the translation from Grandma Stanic to Aunt Kathy, to George's notes version 1 to George's notes version 2.

Mix all the ingredients together.  Roll in cabbage leaves, burrito style.  Layer on top of some chopped cabbage leaves in the bottom of a pan.  Add some smoked pork (I used some pieces from a smoked ham hock) to the chopped cabbage leaves for flavor.  Cover with a mixture of some of the cabbage brine, the juice from the tomatoes, and some water, then bake at 375-400 for 1 1/2 - 2 hours.  (Sorry I don't have more exact measurements for the sauce - I was just throwing it together to get it in the oven at that point.  But, use judgement and I'm sure it will be good.)

Apparently a roast pig is the traditional accompaniment, but I served ours with a salad of roasted red peppers, some red onion strips, and a light dressing of rice wine vinegar, red wine vinegar, tarragon (thanks for that tip Dad, I've been really getting into using tarragon lately), olive oil, and salt.

As you can imagine there is a lot of regional variation in sarma recipes.  Our Serbian friend Irena said her family always makes it without egg or tomato, but with lots of smoked paprika, and is more dry.  Her husband Dusan's family, which is actually Slovakian, makes a "more German" version with egg and tomato, and it's more wet.  And, as I described above, Aleks's grandmother makes it with tomato, but no egg.  I made Grandma Stanic's version and attempted Irena's version, and I preferred the version with tomato.

But, most importantly, I learned that you can ferment whole heads of cabbage.  This takes a LOT less work than the shredding and pounding for traditional German sauerkraut, and as far as I can tell, it ferments just as quickly.  Also, use garlic.