These were cabbage rolls.
There was 12 oz of ground buffalo leftover from the patty melt. I asked J what we could do with it. "Cabbage rolls" was his answer. It was totally out of the blue. I haven't made cabbage rolls for years. I would make the hearty dish occasionally with a pressure cooker, which I haven't used for years either. In fact, cabbage rolls is one of my favorite Japanese dishes. According to wiki, cabbage roll is "common to the cuisines of the Balkans, Central, Northern, and Eastern Europe, as well as West Asia. " I don't know how and when it came to Japan, but it's common in Japan, too. Perhaps a way that Japanese cabbage rolls distinguish themselves is not mixing rice in the stuffing. Rice in cabbaged rolls simply sounds strange for me. To update my old recipe, I searched a popular recipe, of course, a Japanese version online. I found
one that has been tried and liked by over 3,200 people on CookPad, the largest Japanese recipe portal.
The recipe was quite straightforward. I made some changes on ingredients and adjusted the volumes. For stuffing, I used bison instead of ground pork. For soup, I used crushed tomato and chicken stock instead of tomato juice and Japanese soup bouillon cube, and skipped oyster sauce and honey. Like any cabbage rolls recipes, Step 1 was the most difficult process - peeling cabbage leaves without tearing. It often depends on cabbage. My cabbage was very cooperative, and luckily I was able to remove eight leaves beautifully! The recipe pan-sears cabbage rolls before cooking in soup, which I have never seen/hear before. The recipe said it was a key to make the dish delicious, so I followed the recipe. Interesting!
And placed all rolls in pressure cooker with soup.
I pressure-cooked about 20 minutes and naturally released the pressure. All cabbage rolls were nicely done!
They were delicious very much. The soup was a tasty bonus. I couldn't stop soaking the soup with rustic bread and cleaning up the entire dish. I don't know it was because the pan-searing step or using buffalo or both or something else, the dish was wonderful. I would love to repeat the recipe very soon!
