Before I dive into my latest foodie foray into the 1991 Oklahoma Celebrity Cookbook, let it be known that I hate most things cabbage, be it cabbage soup, roasted cabbage, or Cabbage Patch Kids.
But, out of all the cabbage collaborations, the one that's never chased my blues away is the Cabbage Roll.
Imagine the Cabbage Roll as the drunk, rural cousin of the Spring Roll or Egg Roll. The rancid idea of temperate cabbage and uncooked meat melding into a somewhat slimy roll might appeal to some, but it's never been my thing.
That being said, in the interest of passable journalism, I decided to shed my preconceived notions of this tainted foodstuff and give "Country Music Entertainer" Garth Brooks's cabbagy concoction a try:
In retrospect, I should have opted for Argus Hamilton’s Honeymoon Chicken Fried Steak. Maybe next time.
From the outset, the whole recipe was screwed-up. I guess Brooks—or, more likely, Executive Coffee Service of Oklahoma City, the publishers of The Oklahoma Celebrity Cookbook—didn’t proofread the recipe, and included various typos.
I started by cooking two cups of brown rice in the rice cooker.
It was slow to start—around 45 minutes to being fully cooked—and, when finished, I set it to cool. Meanwhile, I made my cabbage sauce, a potmandue of tomato sauce, vinegar, and – oh God – sugar and cinnamon!
While the simmered into oblivion, I mixed the rice with two pounds of ground beef.
At that point, I probably should have made hamburger rice patties and called it a meal, but I soldiered on to the next step: boiling the cabbage leaves.
You'd think this would be easy—at least I did—but the barely-cooked cabbage became like brittle rice paper, tearing apart in my tongs and falling onto the floor.
Difficult to peel, boil, and keep intact, the cabbage leaves quickly became a nightmare. One large leaf turned into four or five small leaves, tearing apart my green rolls into nuggets and burning my fingers into oblivion.
I then poured the excess cabbage water into the raw meat and cooled rice mixture. They were compacted into little meatballs, molded into the cabbage remnants, creating a slow-death for the pale greens. I then drenched it all in the sauce.
Most recipes suggest cooking cabbage rolls in a Dutch oven or some variant, but this one called for a baking sheet covered with cinnamon and foil. What? Even worse, it was to be cooked in a 250-degree oven for four hours. Are you kidding me?
With a few minutes to spare, the timer went off around 10 p.m. I uncovered the foil to find these mutated, bulging meat tubes draped with scorched dry leaves (dry heaves?) that looked as unappetizing as they tasted:
As I took a slow bite, my face betrayed the unpleasantness of the burnt, vinegar-soaked cabbage and the strange cinnamon-flavored meat. Maybe my oven needs a new thermostat, but it was not good at all. I do not recommend it.
As I threw the rest in the trash, I thought, if “tomorrow never comes," I think Brooks’s Cabbage Rolls would be fine disappearing for good. While I'm not a fan of Brooks’s music, I was a moderate Chris Gaines follower—I wonder how his dark and demonic cabbage roll recipe would differ?
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Follow Louis Fowler on Instagram at @louisfowler78.
