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Cooking day with Tanya

This week I went back to visit my host family in Chernigov. I arrived on Monday around lunch, and true to form Tanya had borsch ready for me to eat. It was leftover, but leftover borsch is better than no borsch at all. Sasha was working, so I did not see him. Brother Pavil was working on the remodeling that is coming along nicely. I saw Vera and Maxim when everyone was home on Tuesday night for dinner. A dinner of golubsy. Every time I come back to Chernigov, I request some food that Tanya makes that I like a lot. Usually it is shashlik, but this time I requested that she teach me, step by step to make golubsy. I am pretty sure that many Eastern European cuisines have a version of this stuffed cabbage leaf dinner. I didn't necessarily eat this all that much during training, but the few times I had it, I really liked it. I made the request and she delivered. Well, it was somewhat of a group effort. I arrived on Monday and asked what she needed me to buy for the meal. She worked up a list for me and I went to my old supermarket that I used to shop at every week during training. Everyone from the security guards to the cashiers were as stonefaced and unfriendly as I remembered. Why wouldn't they be? Nothing else has changed in the store...with the exception of where they keep the bread. The only deviation I insisted on from Tanya's list was the item called "farsh". Farsh is the Ukrainian version of "ground beef" or more accurately, "ground meat". The thing is that it is mostly a mental thing with me in that I am sure "ground beef" in America uses the term "beef" rather loosely and I buy that stuff all the time. The thing is that a Ukrainian told me to avoid farsh. "You really never know what's in that stuff" he said. From that moment on I committed to buying chunk beef and grinding it myself, just to try to cut down on the unknown factor. I saw Tanya had a grinder and offered to do everything to realize the home version of farsh. The rest of the stuff was easy to find. A slight snag with the instruction "some tomato sauce that is slightly sweet and not tomato paste" was quickly overcome by asking the clerk if she could point me in the right direction. I got everything home ready for our big cooking day the next morning. I was so happy to be learning this technique from Tanya. It turns out that Tanya's neighbor has an electric meat grinder and Tanya grabbed my beef and took it away, returning an hour later with our freshly ground farsh. Also, even though I had asked only for golubsy, she asked me to buy peppers for stuffing since
they both use the same filling. I was not going to complain.
Golubsy is basically a ground meat, vegetable, and rice mixture that gets spooned onto steamed cabbage leaves. The leaves are then rolled and put into a stockpot in concentric stacks. the pot is then filled with boiling water mixed with a family secret kind of tomato sauce. It simmers for a few hours until the meat is cooked and tastes really good. Many volunteers rank golubsy as one of their top favorite Ukrainian foods. And I agree.
Our ingredient list:
GOLUBSY
2 lbs. farsh (ground beef/pork)
3 large carrots
3 large onions
1 green/yellow pepper
hot peppers to taste
2 cups rice (before cooking)
pinch of dehydrated lemon
2 medium heads cabbage (for golubsy)
10 yellow/red/or green peppers (optional for stuffed peppers)
4-5 medium to large tomatoes

SAUCE
"a little bit" mayo
1/2 litre cmetana/sour cream
1/2 litre ketchup
these should be combined to make a soupy dressing
1 tbs honey
warm water can be added to loosen the sauce

One of the things about golubsy is that since it is so labor intensive to make, most times it is made in big batches for family gatherings instead for an everyday dinner. We started the cooking process around 10:00am and finished around 3:30pm in time for dinner. Granted there was a lot of simmering time in there, but there was also a lot of tasting and testing along the way. I could definitely see this as a social experience.
The dinner was everything I wanted, and it is always nice to have a meal with that whole family- my new family. Tanya's tomato sauce was a little on the creamier side than I am used to, but still tasty. Another item to put in the recipe box for when I come home.

1. grind meat and set in a large bowl covered by a towel
2. in sunflower oil, fry chopped (size of 1st knuckle of thumb) 2 onions and 2 grated carrots
3. cook 2 cups rice in 5 cups water with big pinch of dry lemon
4. when onion and carrots are soft and cooked through, add to raw meat and cover with towel

5. in stock pot, boil water
6. use a sharp knife to cut as much of the core of the cabbage out. this allows the hot water to cook from the inside out too. Set cabbage in boiling water, turn off and cover. Let sit for 10-15 minutes. Carefully remove the cabbage and use a knife to cut the base of the leaves away from the perimeter of the core. As you remove the leaves, they should be soft. Remove leaves one by one until they are not soft, put the cabbage back in the water and repeat until all good leaves are stacked on a separate plate. The last usable leaves will be sort of small.

7. When rice is cooked add to the raw meat, onion, carrot mixture. Mix well, add a sprinkle of salt, pepper and a good squirt of mayo. You want consistency of meat leaf mix. Mix well and cover with towel.

8. If using peppers, cut out stem and get all seeds out.
9. Use a teaspoon to fill the peppers with meat mixture (if you are using them)
10. For cabbage leaves, cut fiberus part off each leaf and fill with about 1 1/2-2 tsp meat mixture per leaf. Roll each like a burrito

11. When all are stuffed and/or rolled, get the stock pot
12. Roughly chop all of the cabbage discards including the small cores from the heads you cut the leaves from. Form a bed in the pot with the cabbage. Place rolled golubsy (cabbage rolls) in the pot. Arrange neatly in concentric circles. If you are making peppers too, place peppers inverted on top of the last layer of cabbage. (if you are making ONLY peppers, you do NOT need the cabbage bed).

13. In sunflower oil, fry 1 roughly chopped onion and another shredded carrot, and rough chopped green pepper. Cover and fry until soft. Add roughly chopped tomatoes, and minced hot peppers and cook until soupy.
14.In saucepan, mix sour cream, ketchup, honey, and mayo. Add salt
15. When fried, soft, and soupy, add veggies to saucepan. Stir

16. pour 1 litre boiling water into stockpot. Pour sauce/veggie mix over stockpot.
17. Add a few bay leaves and small handful peppercorns
18. bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 4 hours on low heat. You can test for doneness by checking the ground meat. If it is cooked through, you are done! Serve hot with mayo or sour cream on the side. Just like borsch it is great as a leftover too.