Recipe: Unstuffed Cabbage (using ground turkey and sauerkraut)

UNSTUFFED CABBAGE

1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 pound lean ground turkey (7 percent fat)
1 large onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 small head cabbage, quartered, cored, and cut crosswise into 1/2-inch strips
2 carrots, chopped
1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes
1/2 teaspoon whole peppercorns
1 cup of drained sauerkraut, rinsed and squeezed dry
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons honey
1 cup water
1 bay leaf
Hot cooked brown or white rice (optional, for serving)

In a large Dutch oven, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the turkey and cook until it loses its pink color, about 4 minutes, breaking up the meat as much as possible.

Add the onion and garlic, cooking until the onion becomes translucent. Stir often, but do not worry if some of the meat browns on the sides and bottom of the pot.

Stir in the cabbage and carrots. Cover, reduce the heat to medium, and cook 3 minutes to wilt the cabbage.

Add the tomatoes. Stirring with a wooden spoon, scrape up any of the brown bits sticking to the pot. Add the peppercorns, then cover and simmer the cabbage for 1 hour.

Add the sauerkraut to the cabbage. Mix in the lemon juice and honey, adjusting the seasoning to your taste. Add 1 cup water and the bay leaf. Cover, and cook 1 hour, until the cabbage is very soft. Remove the bay leaf.

Serve, accompanied by cooked white or brown rice, if you wish.

Each of the 8 servings contains 160 calories and 4 grams of fat.

RECIPE NOTES:
"Necessity and tradition have simmered together for so long in stuffed cabbage that they have melded with the ingredients in this down-to-earth dish to create something elemental. For me, eating stuffed cabbage always triggers flashes of memory. I see Margot, a Girl Scout troop-mother with peaches-and-cream skin and a Hungarian accent you could cut with a knife. Her paprika-enriched stuffed cabbage was the highlight of our otherwise lackluster pot-luck dinners. Next, my grandmother stands in her bright, immaculate kitchen, patiently unwrapping the leaves from a head of cabbage, blanching them, and packing the green rolls of filled leaves into her deep stew pot. Finally, I can taste my mother's stuffed cabbage, with its perfect balance of natural sweetness from dill and golden raisins, and lemony tartness. Occasionally, I help my mother make stuffed cabbage, but it takes too long to bother with on my own.

Seeking a way to short-cut the work so I can enjoy this healthful dish without taking a half day to make it, I realized the answer was to skip the stuffing. This idea came to me while reading a Hungarian recipe for Luckoskaposzta, Sloppy Cabbage. This casserole combines the usual stuffed cabbage ingredients, but the meat is not stuffed into the cabbage. When I tested my theoretical recipe in reality, simmering together shredded cabbage and sauerkraut, ground turkey and tomatoes, the result tasted like my best memories. Unstuffed cabbage still takes me as long as the usual kind, according to the clock. But now, most of it is pot time, hours when you can be out of the kitchen while everything simmers together.

Like most slow-cooked dishes, this stuffed cabbage improves with time and reheating. Try to make it the day before serving, then reheat the entire potful, even when you are serving only part of it. What remains in the pot keeps getting better. Just add some water or broth each time the pot is warmed, and enjoy."

Adapted from source: Dana Jacobi for the American Institute for Cancer Research