“Lambage Rolls” – Lamb and Cabbage

I was in the mood for stuffed Cabbage leaves filled with a very aromatic lamb concoction!

So I embarked on my little journey of flavors and started by preparing the minced lamb that I had conveniently already purchased at Target 🙂

I got all the ingredients lined up which consisted of:

1/4 cup butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
1diced medium onion
4 crushed garlic cloves
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1lb ground lamb
1 cup white rice
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro and mint
1 head cabbage
3 cups of chicken broth, I used Swanson’s Thai Ginger broth
2 bay leaves
4 vine tomatoes
Bunch of fresh Basil
1/2 onion
2 garlic cloves

I melted the butter with the olive oil and cooked the 1 chopped onion and 4 cloves of minced garlic until they were nicely transparent. Took them off the heat and added all the spices. Put that to the side and let it cool down.

In a separate bowl I mixed the ground lamb with the rice, added the salt, chopped mint and cilantro.

Once the above mixture had cooled down I added it to the lamb mixture and put it in the fridge.

Filled a big pot of water and brought it to a boil. Cored a big cabbage and boiled it for about 5 minutes. Took it out and peeled the first couple of leaves that came loose and then boiled it for a couple of more minutes till the other leaves became nice and tender.

Placed my first leaf on my wooden board and took the middle core out and then stuffed it with about a 1/4 cup of my lamb mixture and rolled it tightly.

After I was done with all the mixture, I placed some left over cabbage leaves at the bottom of my casserole and then placed my neat lovely lamb and cabbage packages.

Sprickled some salt and pepper, added the chicken broth and covered everything with my homemade tomato and roasted peppers sauce which I made by:

sautéing 1/2 onion, 2 cloves of garlic, 4 roughly chopped vine ripped tomatoes, a big bunch of basil, salt and pepper. Put it in a blender and added 3 fire roasted red peppers, checked the mixture for flavor and voila, sauce is ready!

Covered my cabbage and broth with the tomato sauce, added the bay leaves and covered with more cabbage leaves and then cooked in a 350 Deg F oven for 1.5 hrs.