When I heard we were having “Gwomkes” or “Gwonkys” I was intrigued, as I had no idea what it was. I tried searching for it on the internet, although it’s not spelled the way it’s pronounced. It was actually Golabki (pronounced ga-WUMP-kee), a traditional Polish minced cabbage roll made from meat wrapped in lightly boiled cabbage leaves.

I was very happy to hear we would be making Polish food, as I haven’t tried much at all, even with it being a part of my heritage (if you have any Polish recipes or cookbooks you’d recommend, please send them through to me, as I’d love to explore Polish food more).

Overall, everyone loved the golabki’s. They tasted great, no complaints on that front. They did mess up a lot of dishes, but a lot of good food does. I’d love to make them again, this time boiling the cabbage whole, as we took off the leaves individually and they tore a bit. Also, making it for fewer people would lower the hassle of this dish. Another cooking class done… we’ve stopped them for quite a while now, with New Years, holidays and everything getting in the way. Maybe we can pick them back up again…

Golabki – Minced Cabbage Rolls

also spelled: Golumkies and Golumpkis
Recipe by my Dad with inspiration from my Babcia’s recipe.

Serves: 10 or more

2 kg finely minced beef
0.25 kg sausage mince
1 cup of cooked white rice
2 eggs
1 mid-size white onion finely chopped
White cooking cotton and/or tooth picks
12 to 14 cabbage leaves (possibly double depending upon size – we used a full cabbage)
Salt & Pepper
1 tablespoon butter
2 tins of tomato puree
80g butter
500ml full cream milk
½ cup plain flour

Cook the rice using the absorption method (Heat 1 teaspoon of butter in a saucepan on high. Add 1 cup rice and stir. Add 1.5 cups boiling water. Reduce heat to low and cook for 20 minutes).

As the rice is cooking, boil at least 3 litres of water.

Mix both meats together with the onion and egg. Add salt & pepper to taste. When the rice is cooked, add it to the meat mixture and mix it through.

Take 12 cabbage leaves and remove the core from each leaf. (Depending upon the size of the leaf then double the amount of leaves may be required and then they would be doubled up in the making of the rolls). We found out afterwards, it would be much easier to cut the core from the cabbage and boil the entire thing. This will make the leaves come away a lot easier, as our ones broke quite easily.

When the water is boiling, add a teaspoon of salt to the water. Place each of the cabbage leaves in the 3 litres of boiling water to blanch them. After approximately 3 minutes, take each leaf out of the boiling water. Shake off the excess water and place the cabbage leaf on a cutting board.

Take the meat mixture and spoon an adequate amount (a tablespoon or two) onto the cabbage leaf.

Fold the cabbage leaf onto itself, forming a tight roll. Use the cooking cotton to tie-up the roll so it won’t unravel.
Note: To secure the roll, the cotton tie may have to be tied around the ends as well as the sides of each roll. (If one wishes, a toothpick can be used to secure the roll.)

Turn on the oven and set the temperature to 180C.

Add a tablespoon of butter (or more) to a frying pan on medium heat and melt the butter. Place each roll into the frying pan, turning so that all sides are lightly browned.

To prepare the sauce, melt 80g butter over medium heat, add the flour and cook for a few minutes, add the milk and whisk until smooth. Whisk in the tomato puree.

As each roll is browned place it into a casserole dish. Pour the sauce over the rolls.

Place the casserole dish into a moderate oven (180C) and cook for 40 minutes. After approximately 20 minutes, take out the casserole dish and turn each roll over. Continue cooking for the remainder of the 40 minutes.

Prepare a side dish of mashed potatoes, carrots and peas/beans to suit.

After the second 20 minutes, remove casserole dish and take each roll and place it on a plate. Add the side dishes. Spoon out the sauce from the casserole dish, covering the rolls and side dishes to taste.

Serve it and enjoy it.

Please disregard the following code, it is so I can claim my blog on Technorati
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I reckon these meatballs are pretty great – especially that you just need to mix the ingredients together, roll in a ball then place in the oven and when they’re browned pour on some diced tomatoes.

The pasta on the other hand was a bit of a handful… To be exact, we had a few problems with my pasta machine – catching the pasta and delaying the already time consuming activity. The other problem was the fact we were making fresh pasta for more than 12 people (including lunches).

Apart from the ordeal with the pasta, this cooking class went extremely well and everyone was pleased with the result.

Homemade Pasta

Served 12-14 in this dish

700 – 750g plain flour
7 -8 eggs
3 egg yolks
3 pinches salt
a few glugs of olive oil

Place all ingredients in a food processor and process until it is crumbly. (With this quantity it was quite difficult and the bottom ingredients clumped quite a bit). Turn out onto a lightly floured clean bench and knead with the palm of your hand until it’s come together. Cover in plastic and refrigerate for 30mins to 1 hour.

Remove from fridge and divide into 8 portions. Keep unused portions covered in plastic. Using one portion at a time, roll out with rolling pin until thin enough to go through thickest setting on pasta machine. Make sure you flour both the pasta and the rollers in the machine. Once rolled, fold over and roll with rolling pin again, continue to roll through the pasta machine for a few times. Then reduce the thickness setting on the pasta machine and pass though. Continue to reduce the setting by one each time and once the pasta is as thin as you’d like (one of the last few settings), dust in flour, slice into thick strips and continue with other pasta portions.

Once all the pasta is almost finished being prepared, boil a very large pot of water. Add some salt to the boiling water and cook the pasta (in batches if need be) until al dente (this won’t take very long with fresh made pasta).

Baked meatballs and tomato sauce

Recipe from the Donna Hay section in the Sunday Magazine

Serves: 8

4 slices white bread
¾ cup milk
500g pork mince
500g beef mince
2 eggs, lightly beaten
¼ cup finely grated parmesan cheese
½ cup chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves
5 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 x 400g cans diced tomatoes

finely grated parmesan cheese, extra, to serve

Preheat oven to 220C. Place the bread in a bowl and pour over milk. Stand for 5 minutes to allow the milk to be absorbed. Tear the bread into pieces. Place bread in a large bowl with the pork mince, beef mince, eggs, parmesan, half the parsley and 3 garlic cloves. Mix well to combine.

Roll tablespoonfuls of the mixture into balls, place in two baking dishes and drizzle with oil.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until browned. Add 2 cans of tomatoes and 1 garlic clove to each dish and stir to combine.

Bake for a further 5-8 minutes or until the sauce in warmed through. Sprinkle with the remaining parsley and parmesan to serve.

You may be surprised to hear that I can only remember maybe once eating meatloaf and I certainly can’t remember if it had egg in it. This dish was chosen with the special condition that there was whole boiled eggs hidden in the middle of the loaf, so when it was sliced when serving, a lovely slice of egg was evident.

This mix was very tasty, the only problem being that the meat mix fell apart a bit while slicing. Maybe we should push down on the mix more, compact the top? Possibly add a bit more beaten egg to combine the meat better? Either way, it was a lovely flavour combination and I would be more than happy to try and perfect this… maybe the host would too? 😉

Meatloaf with Hidden Eggs

1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 large size brown onion, finely chopped
8 eggs (2 of these eggs, beaten lightly)
2 teaspoon of dried mixed herbs
¼ cup of tomato sauce
1.5kg beef mince
500g sausage mince
1½ cups breadcrumbs
¼ tablespoon freshly ground pepper
1 medium carrot, finely grated
5 tablespoons of HP sauce

Hard boil 6 eggs and allow to cool before removing their shells. Heat a large saucepan to medium heat, add the oil and cook the onion for 5-10 minutes, until translucent.

Preheat oven to 180°C. Mix beef and sausage mince using a wooden spoon or by hand. Add the remaining ingredients, including the beaten eggs (excluding the boiled eggs) and mix until well blended.

Spoon half of the mixture into the bottom of 2 or 3 greased loaf tins. Form small indentations for the hard boiled eggs and place eggs into mixture. Smooth the remainder of the mixture into the tin over the eggs.

Bake in oven for 30 minutes, then remove from oven. Remove from the loaf tin and place on a baking tray. Cover loosely with foil to prevent over-browning. Bake in oven for a further 20 minutes.

Remove from oven and allow to stand for 5-10 minutes. Slice and serve with vegetables.

For the latest family cooking class there was a desire to find the perfect home-made Phad Thai. Although this was a lovely mix (I especially loved the sugar content 🙂 – although this was one of the downfalls for most others), the host of this weeks cooking class was not satisfied with the overall flavours and textures of this dish.

We would certainly try to combine some aspects of this recipe with some other recipes and try to improve on the overall dish.

Any suggestions on things we are missing or how things could be improved would be most welcomed. 🙂 But I’ll give you the recipe in case anyone likes a sweet Phad Thai.

Phad Thai Noodles

Serves: 4-6

375g packet rice stick dried noodles, soaked in cold water for 2 hours or overnight to soften, drain
vegetable oil
½ onion, sliced
500g chicken, cut into small strips
2 tablespoon pickled white radish (optional)
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 eggs
2 spring onions, sliced
½ can baby corn pieces
1 carrot, sliced
half bunch Chinese chives, cut into 2.5cm pieces
1 cup bean sprouts
3-4 tablespoons chopped roasted peanuts

Sauce
2 tablespoon tamrind concentrate
1 cup sugar
1½ tablespoons fish sauce
½ cup water

Make sauce by mixing ingredients in a saucepan and heating on medium heat, boil for around 15 minutes while preparing the rest of the meal and keep warm.

Heat oil in wok on medium heat and cook onion until transparent and browning slightly. Remove from wok. Cook chicken in batches in the wok and set aside.

Add eggs and stir-fry until scrambled and slightly dry. Remove from pan.

Add some oil and cook spring onions for 1-2 minutes, then add corn, carrot, cooked chicken and onion. Add sauce and noodles and mix. Add chives and bean sprouts and serve with lime wedges, chopped peanuts and ground chilli, if desired.

I’m not sure of the reasons behind Swedish meatballs being chosen for the fifth cooking class… but I’m glad it was! Having never had Swedish meatballs before, I can’t comment on the authenticity of the flavours, but I was very happy with these flavoursome, slightly creamy, very more-ish meatballs. So much so that I did… lick the plate 🙂 .

This is a definite dish to try and can be modified to what you’ve got in the fridge or freezer, the original recipe was modified to include both pork and beef mince as I was told many of the Swedish meatball recipes on the internet varied between different minces and different ingredients. Our meatballs were served with mashed potato and honeyed caramelised onions in kumara (sweet potato) mash, although serve with what you desire, salad, rice or steamed vegetables.

Swedish Meatballs
Recipe from Taste.com.au

Serves: 4

1/2 cup (45g) breadcrumbs
1/4 cup (60ml) cream
500g Heart Smart beef mince (or 350g beef mince + 150g pork mice)
1 small onion, grated
1 garlic clove, crushed
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup (60ml) olive oil
3/4 cup (185ml) beef stock
1 teaspoon cornflour
1/2 cup (125ml) cream, extra
Mixed salad leaves and crusty bread, to serve

Soak breadcrumbs in the cream. Add the mince, onion, garlic, allspice, egg and salt. Season with pepper. With wetted hands, shape mixture into small balls.

Heat the oil in a frying pan over a medium-high heat. In batches, cook meatballs until brown. Drain excess oil.

Return all meatballs to the pan and add the stock. Simmer, covered, for 20 minutes. Remove the meatballs and cover with foil to keep warm.

Combine the cornflour with a little water and stir into the stock mixture. Heat through until boiling. Reduce heat to low. Add extra cream and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Pour sauce over meatballs and serve with salad leaves and crusty bread – or serve with mashed potato and veggies, as we did.