Close-to-my-Babsta's Holubsti

My fondest memory of eating holubsti as a kid was not so fond for my brother. I remember sitting at the table at my Babsta’s house, happily munching on a cabbage roll filled with rice. We were a vegetarian family, much to my grandparent’s chagrin. Back then being vegetarian wasn’t as common as it is today. For a woman who grew up in Eastern Europe and likely went through times of food scarcity, the idea of not eating meat was unthinkable. And, she thought, unhealthy. So when the opportunity arose to chop meat up into teensy-tiny nearly invisible bits and hide it in her food - she went for it. What loving grandmother wouldn’t have?

The problem was, they weren’t so invisible as she thought and my brother, with the impeccable attention to detail of a five or six year old, found them. I don’t know if he was more upset with having accidentally eaten meat as a vegetarian, or at the injustice of a Babsta who would - in essence - lie to you about your food. I found it all rather amusing, and it may be one of the reasons I remember holubsti so affectionately.

Below is the closest I can get to my Babsta’s recipe for holubsti. The original recipe was a page from a cookbook given from her to my mom, but my grandmother was notoriously secretive about her cooking. I took a combination of the cookbook recipe, my mother’s memories of seeing her cook, my father’s memories of eating her holubsti, and my own recollections (though not my brother’s) and modified it until it tasted right.

There’s not much to it: cabbage, rice, onion, beef. But it’s also a very flexible recipe, and you can add chopped veggies, switch out the kind of meat, add spices, sauce…

 Ingredients

1 large or 2 small heads cabbage

2 cups rice

Pot of boiling water

½ tsp salt

½ tsp pepper or more, to taste

1 white, yellow, or sweet onion, finely chopped

1 tablespoon olive oil (but let’s be honest, she probably used bacon fat)

1 lb ground beef

Step 1

Cut the hard core out of the cabbages. Next, place a pot on the stove that’s big enough to hold the cabbage. Pour a few cups of boiling water over the cabbage – the cabbage shouldn’t be submerged, but maybe have 2-3 inches of water up the sides. Cover and bring the pot to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Let it continue to cook for 10-15 minutes, Check that the leaves are tender and can be pulled back (careful not to burn your fingers!) and then remove from heat, remove cover, and let cool.

Step 2

While the cabbage is steaming, par-boil the rice. First, put the 2 cups of rice in a heat-proof bowl. Pour some boiling water over it, swish, and then drain. (Alternatively you can put the rice in a fine mesh sieve and pour the boiling water over it - I only have a colander with huge holes that the rice goes right through). Transfer the rice to a small pot and pour two cups of boiling water over it. Add a little salt and bring to a boil. Once it’s boiling, turn the heat off and let it sit, absorbing all the water.

Step 3

Put olive oil (or bacon fat, if you have it!) in a pan and heat it. Add the chopped onion and cook it until browned. Then, add the ground beef, chopping it up with a spatula or wooden spoon until it’s about taco beef crumble size. Once it’s cooked through, add the rice and saute all together for a few minutes. Then, remove from the heat.

Step 4

Drain the cabbage. Take the outermost cabbage leaf and place it on a cutting board. Place a heaping tablespoon or two of the rice and beef mixture in the center of the cabbage leaf (how much you put depends on how big your cabbage is). Roll the leaf up from the bottom and fold the sides in, very much like how you would roll a burrito. (Can you tell I like Tex-mex?)

Step 5

Pile the rolled holubsti into a dutch oven (or a large pot if you don’t have a dutch oven). Pour 3-4 cups of beef stock or bone broth (Babsta would have made her own stock) over the holubsti and cook on the stove, simmering, for about 45 minutes.

Yum!! You can eat these plain, but I prefer eating them with sour cream. My nanny eats them smothered in salsa, which is surprisingly delicious. Or, my Babtsa would sometimes make a mushroom cream sauce. If that sounds good, you can keep the broth that the holubsti cooked in and add a bunch of sliced or quartered mushrooms. Cook until they’re soft, then drain the broth reserving about a half cup. Add sour cream to the mushrooms, fresh dill, a little salt, and then add back the reserved broth until it’s the right ‘sauce’ consistency.