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Water
Pour water into large pan. Bring to a boil. Add cabbage. Turn off flame under pot. Remove pan from flame and set aside for 15 minutes. Separate whole leaves. You will need 18, so patch together broken leaves if necessary and cut off any tough ends.
While cabbage is cooking, prepare sauce: Melt fat or 4 tbsp. butter in Dutch oven. Add onion slices; cook until golden. Stir in tomato juice, sauerkraut, and sauerkraut juice.
Mash faux beef until crumbly. With some brands, an electric mixer will prove very helpful. If using no-fat faux beef, add 2 tbsp. melted or softened butter. Otherwise, the filling will be too dry. Add raw rice, garlic, salt, and pepper. Mix until well blended.
Place one cabbage leaf over working surface. Place 1 teaspoonful faux beef mixture near base of leaf. Beginning at meat-topped base of leaf, loosely roll up into log. Place over tomato-sauerkraut mixture in Dutch oven. Repeat with remaining leaves and filling mixture.
Pour 1 cup water over top. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low until mixture is barely simmering. Simmer over low flame until rice is soft (1-1/2 to 2 hours).
Poster's Notes:
I modified it to make it vegetarian, and to clarify some of the measurements (e.g., the original had read "3/4 can" (with no clue about the size) and directed one to add 1 teaspoonful filling to each of 18 cabbage leaves, which left tons of leftover filling). It was excellent ... really good, and very flavorful.
Posted by Virginia Sauer (Sir Angus), Z'L
Nutritional Info Per Serving: N/A
1 large head cabbage
2 to 4 tbsp. (1/8 to 1/4 cup) Vegetarian Chicken Fat (such as Nyfat, click here for recipe) or butter (I use butter)
1 large onion, peeled and sliced in thin rings
4 cups (1 quart, or 32 oz.) tomato juice
1 8-oz. can (1 cup) sauerkraut, undrained
1 pound vegetarian ground "beef"
2 tbsp. butter, room temperature (or melted), optional
1 cup long grain white rice (uncooked)
1 large clove garlic, peeled and crushed in garlic press
1-1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1 cup water
I found this in a celebrity cookbook attributed to actor Tony Curtis, who said that it was a favorite dish his mother had prepared when he was growing up in the Bronx (as Bernie Schwartz, his real name). (Anyone who doesn't consider Tony Curtis a great actor must have missed "Some Like It Hot".)