Unstuffed Cabbage - Vegetarian

In an attempt to share Jewish style recipes with vegetarian friends, I tried to adapt a few parts of three different vegetarian burger, stuffed cabbage and unstuffed cabbage recipes.  Some parts were successes, other parts not so much.  The sauce part of it definitely came out with that sweet and sour taste, familiar from mom's cooking, thanks to a combination of lemon, golden raisins, honey and brown sugar, each in moderation.  The 'meatballs', mostly made up of cannelloni beans and chickpeas, that I attempted to cook in tomato sauce -- sort of disintegrated.  But no great loss - they added to the texture of the sauce.  I decided against trying to steam large cabbage leaves and roll a vegetarian stuffing into them.  Too many opportunities to tear the leaves and have to start over again, and again....

The recipe I ended up with was mainly based on a post on allrecipes.com, called Grandma Elaine's Unstuffed Sweet and Sour Cabbage.  I tried switching out the meat part of it, but may need to either use faux meat crumbles to add to the sauce, or to make 'meat'balls.  The overall recipe takes about 3 hours, but most of the time its simmering on the stove and does not need any attention.  Stay tuned.

2/18/18 - The recipe below seemed good, with a sweet and sour tang, but I needed to freeze it.  When I defrosted it a few weeks later, it seemed to have lost its taste.  I needed to add a LOT of lemon and brown sugar to restore it, but my guests did seem to enjoy it.  I'll have to try it again without freezing.  Also, since the original 'meatballs' fell apart, I made different ones from www.karissavegankitchen.com - appropriately called Vegan Chickpea Meatball Recipe.  They were not bad, but didn't have enough taste.  I might try some fennel sautéed next time to add into the mixture.  I baked them separately and they seemed to have a firm enough outer crust, so they tolerated being reheated gently on the stove in the unstuffed cabbage.

1/29/19  Tried this again when I had lots of carrots to use.  Made the recipe as noted below, with Rao's as the tomato sauce, 2 medium onions, about 1 lb carrots sliced and one small green cabbage.  Ended up adding about 1 tsp of salt (total) and about 2 Tbsp of brown sugar, I think.  Very tasty!


Ingredients: 
1 large white onion
1 (28 ounce) can whole peeled tomatoes
1 (15 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 pounds green cabbage, cored, and cut into 3 inch chunks
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

3+ tablespoons fresh lemon juice - to taste
1/3 cup golden raisins
1 tablespoon honey
1/3 cup packed brown sugar, or to taste

Directions:
1) Place the vegetable oil into a large pot over medium heat. Stir in the sliced onions, and cook until transparent, about 5 minutes.

2) Add the tomatoes and tomato sauce, using a spoon to slightly chop the whole tomatoes. Season with 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Cover, and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

3) Stir the cabbage into the tomatoes. It will initially look like there is more cabbage than can be absorbed, but it shrinks substantially.  Cover, and simmer 1 hour until the cabbage is tender and mixes easily with the tomatoes.

4) At this point, I made a mixture meant to be chickpea burgers.  I suppose I could have cooked them separately coated with flour as instructed, but I added them to the tomato mixture as you would regular meatballs.  They fell apart --

5) Cover the pot and continue to simmer 45 minutes more. Stir in the lemon juice, and taste for seasoning, adding additional lemon juice if required. Stir in the raisins, and honey. Add the brown sugar, a little at a time, tasting after each addition. Cook mixture over medium heat 15 minutes more.

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/143362/grandma-elaines-unstuffed-sweet-and-sour-cabbage/?internalSource=hub%20recipe&referringContentType=search%20results&clickId=cardslot%201

http://www.amuse-your-bouche.com/easy-chickpea-burgers/