Recipe: Tilly’s Stuffed Cabbage With Beef and Root Vegetables

A favorite farm dish for tilling season.

The early spring and fall is when most tilling in the garden gets done and this is a time when root vegetables and cold hearty greens like cabbages are most abundant.  It reminds me of one of my favorite dishes that grandma Tilly would make for Friday night dinners and special holidays. She would always make a point to let me know the cabbage was organic and the beef was grass fed. I miss Tilly both for how she brought the family together and inspired us all with her traditional dishes gone organic. 

Tilly’s Stuffed Cabbage With Beef and Root Vegetables 

Use organic and/or biodynamic ingredients where possible.

  • 1 head Savoy cabbage

  • 1 pound ground grass-fed beef 

  • 1 small to medium onion, chopped small

  • 2 tablespoons olive oil

  • 1 carrot, shredded

  • 1 parsnip, shredded

  • ½ cup uncooked short-grain brown rice

  • 1 to 2 tablespoons tomato paste

  • 3 to 4 cups of your favorite tomato sauce 

Cut the core out of the cabbage but leave it whole. Place it, with the empty core area facing up in a large bowl. Boil a small pot of water and pour the water over the cabbage and let it sit for ten minutes.

Heat the oil in a sauté pan. (I like to use the large one I will cook the final dish in – a deep 12-inch sauté pan – to save dishes). Cool the onions until they are soft, ad the carrot, celery, and parsnip and sauté them for a couple of extra minutes – until they are also soft. Season the mixture with salt and pepper, transfer it to a bowl and let it cool a bit. Mix in the meat, rice and tomato sauce and season again with salt and pepper.

Drain the head of cabbage. Pull off the large leaves, cut out the large vein – if the leaf is very large, you can make two rolls from each. If it is smaller, you can cut the vein out partially and pull the sides to overlap before you roll it into one roll. Pat the leaves dry with towels. Roll about ¼- 1/3 cup of filling in each leaf (depending on the size of your leaf) and arrange in a large wide pot. Pour in enough juice or sauce to cover the rolls. Bring to a boil and reduce the heat, letting them simmer covered on the stove on low for about 45 minutes. Serve immediately. If sauce has thinned a bit, you can heat up any additional sauce you didn’t use and pour it over as you serve the rolls. These also freeze very well.

For more information on Tilling, listen to the podcast episodes: UNDERSTANDING THE MAGIC OF SOIL + TIPS FOR BUILDING GARDEN BEDS

RecipeDaron JoffeTilling