Cheap Unstuffed Cabbage Roll Skillet

Why This One Works

Cabbage rolls are wonderful and rolling them is a project. This skillet keeps everything people actually love about the dish, the sweet cabbage, the savoury pork, the tomato, the rice soaking up the juices, and drops the part that keeps it off weeknight tables. Cabbage does quiet hero work here: a whole kilogram of it costs less than the rice and turns a modest amount of pork into a pan that feeds six grown people properly. The yield was measured, not guessed: one full deep skillet, six servings of about two cups each.

Ingredients

• Ground pork, 700 gabout $6.45
• Green cabbage, 1 kg, shreddedabout $2.63
• Long grain rice, 300 gabout $1.46
• Canned tomatoes, 796 mlabout $2.18
• Onion, 200 gabout $0.67
• Canola oil, garlic, spices and saltabout $0.46

Method

1. Heat the oil in a large deep skillet or Dutch oven over medium high heat. Add the ground pork and cook, breaking it up with a spoon, until browned all over, about 7 minutes. Spoon off most of the fat if there is a lot of it.
2. Add the onion and cook for about 3 minutes, until softened. Stir in the garlic, paprika and cumin and cook for 1 minute, until the spices smell warm.
3. Add the cabbage a few handfuls at a time, stirring each batch until it wilts down before adding more. It looks like a mountain at first and cooks down to fit the pan.
4. Stir in the rice, the canned tomatoes with their juice and about 750 ml of water. Bring it up to a simmer.
5. Cover, lower the heat and simmer gently for about 25 minutes, stirring now and then, until the rice is tender and has soaked up most of the liquid.
6. Take the pan off the heat and rest it, covered, for 10 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste, then serve with a spoon of sour cream on top if you like.