Cabbage and Fresh Sausages Rolls

This is an unpretentious but delicious traditional Portuguese dish, cooked in no time, can be considered “Comfort Food”. It is best served during cold weather, but please feel free to cook it all year round as I do.

For this plate, fresh sausages are used instead of cured ones. Whenever possible, go for regular fresh sausages of medium thickness.

Once cooked in advance, up to 1 to 2 days before being served, it improves in flavor. Just reheat the all batch or as many pieces as you want and serve them with rice (traditional way) or any side dish of your choice.

RECIPE:

Cabbage and Sausages Rolls

This time I used Coffee Sausages but it is traditional made with regular fresh sausages

 Ingredients:                        

• 8          fresh sausages
• 1         Cabbage, whole leaves at least 1 per sausage
• 150g     Chorizo, cubed
• 3TBS    Olive oil
• 1          onion, chopped
• 1          garlic clove, minced
• 2          bay leaves
• 100ml   white wine
• Water OR Stock, salt and pepper

Prepared leaves, ready for boiling

Caramelized onion with chorizo pieces

Boiled cabbage / 5 min.

Preparation:

1.       Separate the cabbage leaves leaving them as intact as possible. If they are small you may need 2 leaves per sausage. Wash and reserve.

2.       Bring a big pan of water to a boil . When boiling insert the cabbage leaves a few at a time. Let them boil for about 5 minutes, and then drain with a colander and reserve. Repeat until you have finished with  all leaves.

3.       In a separate pan big enough to hold all the sausage rolls, heat the olive oil, add the chopped onion, garlic and bay leaves. Cook for a while until the onion starts to get color. Add now the chorizo and cook for about 3 minutes stirring from time to time.

4.       Pour in the wine followed by the fresh sausages. Cook them for another 3 minutes. The outer part will turn slightly pale. After this time turn off the fire and let them cool for a while before using them again (Step 1 to step 4 this can be done several hours in advance or the day before, keeping it refrigerated).

Cooking the sausages for about 3minutes until pale

5.       Spread the cabbage leaves on the top of the counter or another clean working surface in order to have 6 portions. Use small pieces of cabbage and put them on the top of the big leaf.  Place 1 partial cooked sausage in one side of the cabbage and make a roll. If necessary use toothpicks to help closing the roll.  Once the rolls are made put them back in the pan where the sausages were cooked.

                                             Spread cabbage over the counter and place a sausage at one end                                     

Put the rolls back in the pan and cook until tender

6.       Add some water OR stock to the pan and cook the rolls until the cabbage is cooked and tender.

7.       Check seasoning and serve the rolls with white rice, drizzling with the chorizo and cooking liquid.

Note: For this dish I like white rice with very loose grain

Loose grain "Al dente" rice

 

Tip: In order to get a non sticky rice like this one at the picture, bring a big pan of water to a boil, when boiling add salt and cook the rice until "al dente" (cooked but still resistant). Drain with the help of a colander and wash it with running COLD water.

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