The best cabbage box ever

A box of cabbage simmering in the oven is the best fall food.

The cabbage box is baked in the oven for two hours. Roni Lehti

Cabbage box is a great Finnish home food. You can’t get anywhere with that, states Pippuri.fi’s chef Risto Mikkola.

Mikkola has a warm relationship with the cabbage box. Also because it is his wife’s favorite food. Many people love Kaalilattiok, but it doesn’t bask in the limelight.

– You could even say that the cabbage box is a rejected celebrity. It has a lot of fans who don’t vote for their favorite, says Mikkola.

When Mikkola is his friend Mika Pikkis Tuomonen at lunch with, each of the men chose a box of cabbage for food.

– It’s not about my mother’s taxes, stated Mikkola’s lunch club directly.

This recipe below is largely the same as the cabbage box made by Tuomonen’s mother.

You need good rice porridge, carefully stewed minced meat and onion, milled cabbage and plenty of dark syrup.

When all these are done, mix the ingredients together and pour the egg-milk mixture on top. It makes the box sturdy and solid.

– If you only had to eat one food for the rest of your life, it would be a box of cabbage, says Tuomonen, founder of Social Burgerjoint.

Autumn cabbage should be chosen as the cabbage for the cabbage box, because summer’s bland early cabbages do not flavor the box in the same way. The balls of it and summer cabbage are loose and crunchy, and for their size, they are lighter than autumn cabbage. Autumn scales are denser and larger. Winter cabbages, harvested only in October, are particularly dense and heavy.

Cabbage box

Rice porridge

1 dl of porridge rice

1 dl of water

4 dl whole milk

1 teaspoon of salt

1. Cook the rice in salted water until the liquid has been absorbed into the rice.

2. Add the milk and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the milk has been absorbed into the rice.

3. Finally, add salt and mix into the porridge.

Minced meat

600 g ground beef

2 onions

2 teaspoons of salt

0.5 tsp black pepper

0.5 dl of ketchup

2 tablespoons of rapeseed oil

1. Brown the minced meat in a frying pan in rapeseed oil.

2. Add all the remaining ingredients and simmer for 20 minutes.

Freeze cabbage

1 kg of cabbage in strips

0.5 dl rapeseed oil

2 teaspoons of salt

0.5 tsp black pepper

2.5 dl of maple syrup

1. Heat the oil in a pan and add the cabbage strips.

2. Simmer the cabbage under the lid for 10 minutes until it is slightly softened.

3. Season with maple syrup, salt and pepper. Simmer for 20 minutes.

4. Mix the rice porridge, minced meat and cabbage together. Spread the cabbage box mixture in the baking dish.

1 egg

3 dl whole milk

1. Pour over egg milk and mix. Bake in a 160 degree oven for 2 hours. If the surface of the cabbage box darkens too much during baking, cover the cabbage box with aluminum foil.

Licorice yogurt

2 dl food yogurt

1 dl frozen strawberries

1 tablespoon of sugar

a pinch of salt

1. Mix all the ingredients together.

The story was originally published in September 2019.

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