The Cooks Who Have Influenced Us - Remembering Malvina

The Cooks Who Have Influenced Us

This week I have been realizing to a greater degree how much each piece of my life is coming into play in what I do now, who I am and how I react to situations, the way that I love, the way I carry joy and pain in life. How I cook has been influenced by so many women along the way, and I actually don’t have many men who have influenced my culinary skills – except for the chefs at cooking school and they were at a theoretical level, not a heart level.

Today I heard about the death of one of those women – Malvina Rose. Many years ago I used to babysit her children. She and her husband were very involved in the Hungarian Canadian club and she so often was taking large trays of food out the door as they headed to a gathering. Their house was always filled with the aroma of something wonderful from the kitchen. She shared her recipe for cabbage rolls and it is the one have had the most success with. In fact I always think of her and her warm dark eyes and lovely laughter whenever I prepare cabbage rolls her way.

There are so many stories, places, faces and warm kitchen memories come alive when I meander through the recipes in the old tin box in the cupboard - a wonderful melange of pieces of paper from the cooks in my life.

I don’t have a written recipe for Hungarian Cabbage rolls, but aside from those Malvina made, I have eaten fabulous ones in a little restaurant in the centre of Budapest Hungary, as well as at a self serve restaurant in the centre of Kiev Ukraine.

Thanks Malvina for introducing my palate to the delights of Hungarian traditional dishes! My thoughts are with her husband and children as they move through this sorrow.

Here is a traditional recipe for Hungarian Cabbage Rolls from recipes.epicurean.com
Ingredients:
1 medium head cabbage
3 lbs. ground beef,veal,pork mixture(sometimes I use all ground pork from the tenderloin)
1/2 cup Uncle Ben's rice
1 egg
1 medium onion (chopped)
4 cloves crushed garlic
6 slices bacon
1 Tblsp. paprika
1 large can tomato sauce
1 large jar Vlasic sauerkraut
1 small piece of jowl bacon for seasoning
salt and pepper to taste
2-3 quarts water
Directions:
Core head of cabbage and boil in large pot until cabbage becomes soft in the middle of core. Do not over cook or cabbage will fall apart when wrapping. When cooled separate leaves and slice off some of the thick vein. Set aside.
Fry bacon, remove when crisp. Keep grease in fry pan. Add chopped onion and garlic. Cook in grease until tender but not brown. Set aside.
In a mixing bowl
, combine meat, egg, rice, salt, pepper, paprika. Mix ingredients together, add cooked onion/garlic mixture, grease and all. Mix until mixture becomes a little sticky.
Rinse sauerkraut in a colandar, squeeze excess water out. Sprinkle kraut on a bottom of a 6 qt pot, add the jowl bacon for flavoring only.
Assembling cabbage rolls:
Place cabbage leaf in left palm, place a small handful of meat mixture in right hand (about the size of a large meatball) Press down on cabbage leaf. Lay one end of leaf over meat and roll up then secure other end of leaf pushing into the meat. Lay seam side down on top of sauerkraut. Continue until all the cabbage and meat is used up. Cover cabbage rolls with water. Add one can tomato sauce to give it color. Sprinkle with garlic powder and paprika if so desired.
Cook on top of stove for about 3-4 hours or longer to acquire a better flavor

Serves a large crowd 15-20.. depends on size of cabbage roll. Can be frozen and reheated in oven.
My mother always made it on top of the stove but some people prefer baking in the oven. I like it both ways. The meat is a little more tender if baked in the oven. Also, the less beef used, the more tender the roll. Good luck!

.