Cabbage stuffed chicken fried cauliflower rice with sunflower seed butter sauce! Yep, its a mouthful. I don't know a better name. Thai cabbage dolmas? Israeli dolmas with sunbutter sauce? How about just a picture of it:
Why this recipe? Because there aren't enough recipes online that are comparable with my strict limited blood type O high protein diet. I want to change that. 😇 Also, because I made this one up as I went, so I figured it was worth sharing since it turned out well. This recipe is also great because it has a lot of flexibility for food allergies and dietary needs. I'll include options along the way.
I made this in my parent's small kitchen with very few tools. At home I would have used a food processor and whisk, but here I used a cheese grater and a fork. And a pan that was too small. So there is no need to fear owning the right kitchen tools.
What you need:
- A carrot
- Fresh ginger
- Cauliflower rice or actual rice
- Peas
- Meat or tofu or eggplant cubes (I used finely diced chicken because I need meat.)
- A head of cabbage
- Nut butter (I used sunflower seed butter, but almond or cashew butter would probably work very well too. Tahini?)
- Coconut aminos or soy sauce or fish sauce
- Whole fat nut milk or yogurt (I used coconut milk. I wonder if a whipped avocado would work instead. A boxed nut milk might work, but I can see it being too thin.)
- Apple cider vinegar
- Coconut or Avocado or sunflower seed oil
- Seasoning (I only had cumin and parsley to work with, I would say a good curry, masala, shwarma, or other middle eastern blend would work great.)
Note: There's no reason why you can't add more diced vegetables or even throw in some almond slices. This is not a scientific formula. If you love okra, by all means, include some. You could use sausage as your meat option. I think scrambled egg would also work well. I formed an outline for a recipe that can be altered easily. I realize this type of recipe is already common, but it usually requires ingredients that are not allergy or diet friendly. The important thing to note is that it tastes good for as simple as I made it - this isn't bland or boring for the lack of ingredient variety. Also, keep in mind that you shouldn't combine starchy foods with proteins. That's a recipe for digestive disaster (like the good 'ol American hamburger.)
First, how to make the sunflower seed butter sauce:
Put two spoonfuls of sunflower seed butter into a bowl. Add the same amount of coconut milk (or try a whipped avocado.) Pour in coconut aminos to your liking, I probably used 2 tablespoons worth, maybe 3. I didn't measure. Add a table spoon of apple cider vinegar. Mix very well. It should have a thick syrupy consistency. If too thick, add more milk first, then add more oil. Taste test it.
How to make the cabbage dolma:
0. Go to the farmers market and buy the big $7 organic cabbage. Or just grab whatever cabbage you have around. I'll have enough cabbage for 10 of these - I couldn't find a smaller one at the market! The size of the leaves were my mom's inspiration for making a wrap. I took the idea and ran with it.
1. Gently peel off the cabbage leaves, one at a time. I pulled off 4 and it turned out to be the perfect number, but again, my cabbage was huge. They will not want to come off easily, and you will likely rip them. That's ok, as long as only the edges rip. I cut the base of each leaf and peeled from the base first, then loosened up the outside of the leaf. There's probably some trick to peeling off cabbage leaves, but I don't know it.
2. Place the leaves in a large enough pot and boil or steam them. As you can see, mine barely fit. I let them steam for the entire cooking time, which was about 30 minutes. The idea is to get them soft, no longer crunchy.
3. Start frying the cauliflower rice or actual rice in a pan with plenty of oil (I used 3 table spoons coconut oil.) I don't eat grains, so I can't give advice on making fried rice. I do know that cauliflower rice is moist, so it needs time to dry out enough to fry. I had it on a medium high heat until dry and slightly brown.
(To make cauliflower rice you simply throw cauliflower in a food processor or blender and grind it up into small grains. I didn't have access to one this time, so Mom grated it on the cheese grater and it actually worked really well, just took more effort.)
4. Grate the carrot and ginger with the cheese grater and mix them. Use as much of each as you want. I can't tolerate a lot of carrot because it acts like sugar in my body, so one carrot was plenty for me. I recommend a lot of ginger here. I used 3/4ths an average palm-sized root and liked it.
5. Add the carrots and ginger to the cauliflower rice, turn the heat down to medium low.
6. Add desired seasoning.
7. Chop or shred your meat / tofu/ eggplant, then add it to the pan. Optionally, you can cook this separately to brown it, but I threw it in raw. I need my vegetables cooked down far to digest them, and they got cooked down enough by the time the chicken cooked fully.
8. Add in the sunflower butter sauce after the chicken. Stir well, keep mixing the mixture.
9. Carefully pull the cabbage leaves out of the pot with a spoon, not tongs. Tongs will rip it. I placed them on a paper towel to absorb the water, then put it on a plate. Spoon the fried cauliflower mix into the middle of the leaf, leaving plenty of space for folding. Optionally, squeeze lime juice on at this point. I thought it was a good addition.
10. Roll the leaf. You'll figure it out. It will stick and stay sealed if you left enough room along the edges of the cabbage leaf. Optionally, you could drizzle more sauce on top.
11. Serve and enjoy!
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