Green Eye Rolls

Cabbage rolls are something you must have often seen, heard of or even devoured. But in an era of complicating the simple, I believe in simplifying the complex without compromising on the quality.

So here’s a quick revamp of the traditional cabbage rolls. No elaborate prep. Not too many ingredients.
You can have them along with your main meals or even just as snacks. And because it’s a spin off I gave it a new spinned off name too. Aah! Nomenclature is one of my hobbies, did I tell you? 🙂

So here it goes –

Prep time 1 hour
Serving: 4 rolls

Ingredients:
Cabbage leaves (neatly separated and washed) : 4
Meat (goat/lamb/pork/beef, basically any kind of red meat) : 500 gms, minced
Rice (boiled) : a medium size bowl
Oliver oil : 4 tbsp
White sesame : 1 tsp
Dill (chopped) : 1 tsp
Cashews (roughly crushed) : 25 gms
Green chilies (finely chopped) : 5
Salt : to taste

Method:
1. Bring a pan of water to boil and put the washed cabbage leaves in it for just over a minute.

2. Lift them out of the boiling water and immediately immerse them in a bowl of chilled water. Later remove the spines. Be careful not to tear the leaves in the process. You will need to roll them later.

3. Keep your rice ready by boiling them just as you cook plain steamed white rice.

4. Heat a pan and pour 2 tsp of olive oil. Once hot, add in the white sesame, chopped dill, crushed cashews and stir still light brown. Lastly add in the chopped green chillies and stir just for anot her half a minute. Keep it aside.

5. Use the same boiled water in which  cabbage leaves were steamed, to now boil and soften the meat. Add a pinch of salt to it whole boiling. Sieve out the excess water.

6. Take a bowl and mix well together the steamed rice, meat and stir-fried mix in it. Add salt to taste.

7. Now spread the leaves out on a dish. Fill each with the rice mix, eually distributed among all four.

8. Roll up each leaf up into a tight roll. Try keeping the opening face down so the fillings don’t spill open. We don’t use any additional batter to seal it.

9.This is one version that’s ready with this last step. You could just sprinkle few drops of olive oil on the rolls and serve them chilled as salad rolls. This is the version I prefer, my palate being more inclined towards “the more bland the better” in most instances. Or you could follow through rest of the steps for the sautéed version)

10. Heat the pan again and pour rest of the olive oil in it. When hot, gently put each roll on the pan and saute each side for not more than 2 mins. Be careful while flipping them over to the other side not to spill open the rolls. Gentle is the word here.

11. Your healthy, yummy cabbage roll spin offs are ready.

Serving Tips:
This dish can be eaten either fresh hot from the pan (the sautéed version) or even chilled (the steamed salad version)

Extra spins:
* do not throw away the excess water used to boil the cabbage and the meat. It is an excellent stock for any broth, soup or stew.

* you could use an white or a red dip to go with this dish. But be careful not to use any dip that’s too spicy or tangy. It will kill the cabbage rolls’ lighter flavors.

So, spin off those lush for the eyes and yum for the tongue and healthy for the tummy Green Eye Rolls soon in your individual kitchens and Do let me know how much, or not, you liked them.

Bon appétit..! 🙂

 © & Author : Nivedita Dey, 2016