Servings: 4

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 1 hour 54 minutes

Freezing: yes

INGREDIENTS

• 1 medium leafy cabbage (flat cabbage, kale or white    cabbage)  

Sauce

• 750 ml (3 cups) tomato juice

• 45 ml (3 tbsp) lemon juice

• 1/4 cup (60 mL) brown sugar

• 1 garlic clove, finely chopped

• Salt and pepper, to taste

Garnish

• 1/4 grated spanish onion

• 60 mL (1/4 cup) uncooked rice

• Salt and pepper, to taste

• 1 beaten egg

• 750 g (1 1/2 lb) ground beef

• 1/2 cup (125 mL) water

• Salt and pepper, to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 180 ° C (350 ° F).

2. In a large pot of boiling salted water, blanch the cabbage leaves for 3 to 4 minutes to soften.

Sauce

1. In a saucepan, mix all the ingredients of the sauce. Simmer over medium heat for 20 minutes.

Garnish

1. In the meantime, in a bowl, combine all the ingredients of the filling. Salt and pepper.

2. Stuff each cabbage leaf with 30 to 45 ml (2 to 3 tbsp) of filling.

3. Fold the ends of the cabbage leaves over the filling and roll them to shape the cigars.

4. Arrange the cabbage cigars side by side in a buttered baking dish. Pour the sauce over the cigars.

5. Cover with foil and bake 1 hour 30 minutes. Sprinkle sauce regularly during cooking.

Note

It is better to remove the leaves from the cabbage before boiling them; cooking will be much faster.

When pouring the sauce on cabbage cigars, it must be boiling. Otherwise, it takes 25 minutes more baking.