Kaldolmar

I think in every family, when they start out bring together their traditions and recipes and work them into something new, accepts them or loves them. Kris and I had to work together to figure out how our family would celebrate Christmas for instance, her traditions and mine were different and together we came up with great things that worked for us. Recipes have worked like that too in some cases, recipes that were great for me have changed a little over time to suit our family better sometimes separate dinner entrees are appropriate if one of use gets a craving for something bizarre (OK "someone" in this sentence refers to me) and some of our recipes that have been new to the other but are perfect the way they are and have stayed exactly the same. This post is about on of those meals.

Kris showed me how to make Kaldomers a couple of years ago, she learned it from her Grandmother who passed it down. That is such a cool way to learn a recipe, passed down through generations. I haven't experienced that, partly because my family was a bit "traditional" in that Boys didn't play in the kitchen so much, partly because my love for the kitchen came after my mom stopped cooking.

Kaldolmars are a Swedish dish, simply a Cabbage Roll, probably brought to Sweden through the Mediterranean; the first Swedish publication of the recipe was in 1755 and contained Grape Leaves, later changed to Cabbage because it was available. Kris' Recipe Contains:

1 Cup Rice

1 Pound Ground Beef

1/3 Pound Ground Pork

1 Small Onion finely diced

1 Head of Green Cabbage

Salt

Pepper

Butter or Margarine

Start by Cooking the rice, that is one cup of rice and two cups of water with a little butter in it, bring it to a boil and turn burner down, let that cook for 20 minutes.

While the rice is cooking. boil some water in a large sauce pan and blanch the Cabbage leaves, a few at a time, for a couple of minutes each. When they are easy to work with take them out and set aside.

This is the hard part for me... mix the Beef, Pork, Onions, Salt and Pepper together then add the Rice when it is cool enough to handle. I tend to mash it together into meatballs which doesn't work as well, Kris manages to, for lack of a better word, fluff these ingredients together. So the Beef, Pork, Onions and Rice are well blended but loosely packed.

Take the meat mixture about 1/4 cup at a time and roll in the softened Cabbage Leaves. Line them up in a casserole pan top each roll with a pat of butter and bake in a 350 oven covered for about 45 minutes then uncover and cook for an additional 15.

We serve these as dinner by themselves I like the whole thing (love cooked Cabbage) Kris and the kids set the cabbage aside and enjoy the meat rice mixture with a little butter. In my quick study of this dish I hear that they go well with Potatoes and Loganberry Jam.