I had the large outer leaves of a Savoy cabbage (chou de Savoie ou chou de Milan en français) in the freezer. I had a thigh and part of the breast of a farm-raised chicken that Walt had cooked on the barbecue grill two or three days ago. I had carrots, stalks of celery, onions, garlic, croûtons, and smoked bacon (lardons fumés). I thought that, diced up and sautéed, that mixture would make a good stuffing for the cabbage leaves. It did. I cooked the stuffed, rolled leaves in a cream sauce.
These aren't the first cabbage rolls I've ever made. Follow this link to see others, with more details.
I realize that, these days, anyhow, you can't usually ever find Savoy Cabbage in the grocery stores around here.
ReplyDeleteFollowing the links to your previous posts about cabbage rolls, I was thinking that they might be from before I found your blog, because they were 2008 and 2011... but there I was, in the comments! LOL Also funny: in one of them, you wrote about how you can freeze the cabbage ahead of time, as a method of getting the leaves to come off easily, and I was going to comment, TODAY, that I hadn't known that you could do that... and then I saw my comment on that old post, and in it, I mentioned having seen Jacques Pépin and Julia Child telling about freezing the cabbage! Ha!
I look back and re-read my posts often. I always find typos, so I try to fix them. And I enjoy the memories. The blog is my virtual memory, or permanent memory, and it's useful because my built-in memory is fading. Les ans en sont la cause, if you get my drift. I re-read your comments on the posts about stuffed cabbage too.
DeleteI remember a time when blog wasn't in the dictionary lol. I use this blog to remember what years I we traveled together. The comments are an important part of this experience. That Savoy cabbage leaf is beautiful.
ReplyDeleteSavoy Cabbage is available in the stores around me! Now...if only lardons were ! Very creative and elegant, Ken! It must have been delicious!
ReplyDeleteHave you ever seen slab bacon in your markets? I remember finding it in northern California a few times. Maybe you can order it from the butcher. Then you can cut into chunks and have lardons. Also, if you can get thick sliced bacon, you can cut that into lardons the same way.
DeleteYes! That's a good replacement! I can use that. Merci, Ken!
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