Stuffed Cabbage Dinner
Greetings, deli devotees!
The temperatures are finally dropping, leaves are changing colors, and this is the time of year when one of our Goldberg family heirlooms really starts to shine. Of course, I’m talking about our fabulous stuffed cabbage.
Many different cultures serve foods wrapped in leaves, don’t they? Tamales in South America. Dolmades in Greece and the Levant. Chinese dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves. And of course, Eastern Europeans love their stuffed cabbage.
Stuffed cabbage is a simple and economical dish, but it’s also wonderfully festive. A little beef. Perfectly cooked grain. Choice spices. All wrapped into sweet, tender leaves of cabbage before being baked in a savory tomato sauce. It’s funny — the dish is a lot of work, and it would be so much easier to just serve it all in a bowl Chipotle-style. But where’s the panache in that?
Bubbe in her kitchen
One of the greatest pleasures I get from stuffed cabbage — other than eating it, of course — is teaching other people how to make it. Call it paying it forward. Like most Jewish foods in my life, I learned to make stuffed cabbage from my Bubbe, who was a master of the form. It seems easy enough, but stuffed cabbage takes a lot of technique. So, always listen to Bubbe!
It might seem strange, but stuffed cabbage is all about balance. It’s almost Buddhist, and certainly a Jewish concept, too. This idea that everything runs along the middle path. The texture of stuffed cabbage must be both firm and soft. The tomato sauce, a blend of sweet and sour. Too much sweet and the sauce tastes saccharine. Too sour, and it’s like eating a beef pickle! Balance.
The act of cooking, preparing, and arranging all the ingredients so that each cabbage roll looks the same — that, friends, is an art. For instance: Even a perfect head of cabbage needs to be poached just right. It needs to be flexible for rolling but not so overcooked that it completely falls apart. Every leaf of cabbage is dissimilar, too. They’re all different sizes and thicknesses, so they all need to be cooked for different lengths. It takes a careful, discerning cook to get them all the same texture.
More tips from Bubbe: The meat mixture has to be high-quality chopped beef mixed with spices and rice for texture. The stuffing has to hold its own shape, too. If it’s too dry and dense, the stuffed cabbage becomes so tight that you need a steak knife to cut it! If the meat mixture is too loose, the whole thing crumbles. Then, when you roll it, you can actually ruin the whole dish by rolling it too tight or too loose. A quintessential stuffed cabbage should be easily sliced with the side of a fork. Balance, you see, not just in flavor, but in texture as well.
Of course, when you’re eating it, you don’t necessarily need to think about all these things. Eating stuffed cabbage is all about mood and emotion. It’s a dish that feels like home to so many different people. Feels like family. It’s one of the most emotionally resonant dishes we serve at The Stage. It’s a quintessential soul food, right up there with our matzo ball soup and gefilte fish. But I think it fits modern society like a glove, too. According to several sources, cabbage is making a comeback!
Stage Dining Room at Lunch
Sometimes at the Stage we alter a dish to suit a modern crowd. It’s the very nature of the Jewish deli to accommodate, right? Bubbe didn't know gluten-free, but we do! We tweaked the recipe to remove gluten ... you're welcome.
Quite honestly, it’s surprising how many dishes can seamlessly become gluten-free and still maintain their original integrity.
Hot out of the oven!
And boy does our stuffed cabbage hit in the fall. Speaking of, the weather is starting to cool considerably now (some frigid mornings are on the way!), which means many Stage-goers are going to be taking advantage of our wide selection of soups.
One of the more interesting developments over the years is how our soups have become soup-er popular. We serve over 10 different soups at Stage. Ten. Our top seller is mushroom barley: hearty, comforting, and life-affirming. French onion, chili, and of course our various chicken soups, which, during flu season, are practically Jewish penicillin for the soul! Our soups stave off the cold, ward off sickness, and warm the heart. (Honestly, we should work for the CDC.)
We also serve a special rotating soup every day, and here’s a hot tip that only the Stage cognoscenti know: We always serve yesterday’s soup special today. Die-hard Stage Deli fans know that soup is always better with time, when the flavors have had a chance to marinate. So don’t be shy — ask about yesterday’s soup today!
Mish Mash Soup
The autumn season is truly a special time at Stage. Full of hearty stuffed cabbage and warm, delicious soup. Plenty of options for all. I’m proud that we’ve been able to adapt while keeping tradition alive. While keeping Bubbe’s memory intact.
See you soon, my fellow cabbage champions.
-Steve