Wirsing-Rouladen mit Hirsefüllung und Pilzsauce (savoy cabbage roulades with millet filling in mushroom sauce)
Savoy cabbage leaves rolled around a nutty millet and vegetable filling, braised gently and served in a mushroom sauce built on hard-seared mushrooms. Toasting the raw millet briefly in a dry pan before it goes into the cooking liquid brings out a nuttiness that boiling it straight from the packet never develops.
Prep40 min
Cook55 min
Servings4
Christoph's savoy cabbage roulades, the raw millet toasted dry first for a nuttiness plain boiling never develops.
Ingredients
Written for a 4 L pot
Units
Temperature
Servings
Roulades
- 8 large savoy cabbage leaves rounded
- 150 g millet rounded
- 300 ml vegetable broth rounded
- 100 g carrot, finely diced rounded
- 100 g onion, finely chopped rounded
- 20 ml olive oil rounded
- 8 g fine salt rounded
Mushroom sauce
- 300 g mushrooms, sliced rounded
- 30 g butter rounded
- 100 g onion, finely chopped rounded
- 700 ml vegetable broth rounded
- 150 ml cream rounded
- to taste fine salt rounded
Dietary labels are a guide, not a guarantee. If you have an allergy, read the ingredients yourself.
Method
- Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil. Blanch the cabbage leaves for 2 minutes, just until pliable. Drain and pat dry.
- Toast the raw millet in a dry pan over medium heat, stirring, for 2 to 3 minutes, until fragrant and lightly coloured.
- Heat the olive oil in a pot and sweat the onion and carrot for 4 minutes, until softened. Add the toasted millet and broth. Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook 15 minutes, until the millet is tender and fluffy. Season with salt and let cool slightly.
- Spoon the millet filling onto each cabbage leaf, near the stem end. Fold in the sides and roll up tightly. Secure with kitchen string or a toothpick.
- Bring the 700 ml broth to a simmer in a wide pot. Add the roulades, seam-down, cover, and simmer 35 minutes, until tender.
- Meanwhile, sear the mushrooms hard in a dry pan for 5 to 6 minutes, until deeply browned. Melt the butter in the same pan and sweat the onion for 4 minutes. Return the mushrooms, add the cream and 200 ml of the roulade braising broth, and simmer 8 minutes, until slightly thickened. Season with salt.
- Serve the roulades with the mushroom sauce.
Notes
- Toast the millet dry before cooking it in liquid. This single step brings out a nutty flavour that plain boiling never develops; skip it and the millet tastes merely starchy.
- Sear the mushrooms hard in a dry pan before building the sauce. A gentle sauté leaves them pale and watery; a proper sear gives real flavour that survives simmering in cream.
- Blanch the cabbage leaves only until pliable, not fully soft, so they hold together when rolled and braised.
- The roulades and sauce keep for 4 days in the fridge and reheat well together.
Ingredient substitutions
- Millet can be swapped for quinoa, cooked the same way, though the flavour and texture will be slightly different.
- Savoy cabbage can be white cabbage, blanched the same way, though it needs a slightly longer blanch to become pliable.
- Cream can be crème fraîche for a slight tang in the sauce.
From Christoph Mayer