Even as a child I was an anglophile and enjoyed the kind of fiction where children who were ill were sent to bed with barley water or beef tea to help with their recovery. I had no idea what either of those two things were at the time, but they seemed completely restorative - no matter which author wrote about them. Some authors added toast. The first time I had beef tea was at Fortnum and Mason in London when we lived there, served in a fine bone china cup, and I loved it. It is basically a collagen rich consommé that you do not need to clarify as far as I can tell.
As well as loving all things British, I come from Carpatho-Rusyn stock (which basically, from what I can tell, means that the borders near the village we originally came from kept on changing depending on the most recent conflict) and there was nothing that my great-aunts liked more than serving up halupki - beef stuffed cabbage rolls (overcooked) and then smothered in a thick, sweet and sour tomato sauce (and overcooked some more), which I hated with a passion.
This recipe is my firm rejection of all things halupki, while having to deal with what to do with a ton of cabbage irn the fridge, and a bag of beef bones in the freezer. Memories of childhood fiction resurfaced. Make this. Please do. It is a surprisingly elegant "peasant" dish. And yummy.
1 lb sirloin, hand chopped (this would also be excellent with game such as boar or venison or, in a pinch, bison)
2 lbs beef bones
10 whole cabbage leaves + 1 cup finely chopped
1 cup winter vegetables (I used a mix of turnip, bean sprout and grated sweet potato)
2 carrots, halved and cut into thirds
1/2 white or yellow onion
1 thumb sized knob of ginger, unpeeled
3 sprigs thyme + 1 tsp chopped thyme leaves
1 star anise
1 Tbsp dried mushrooms, rinsed
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
Salt
Preheat the oven to 400.
Roast the bones, salted, for 1 hour on a foil lined tray. Add the carrots and the onion half and roast for another hour. You can skip this step and go straight to the "on the stove" step (next) but roasting adds a really lovely depth of flavor to the final dish.
Once the bones and veggies have done their time in the oven and are roasted and caramelized, remove them from the foil lined tray and place them in a stock pot along with the ginger, star anise, sprigs of thyme and dried mushrooms. Cover with water to just above the highest protruding bone. Cover and place on the lowest possible heat source and cook for 2 hours, never letting the liquid come to a boil. I just left it and went about my business. No stirring needed.
Strain the solids from the broth and salt the broth according to taste. The broth is beef tea and you should end up with about 4 to 5 cups of it. Set it aside. Reserve the solids as well.
Place the cabbage leaves in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Set aside for 10 minutes.
Chop your sirloin. Chop your vegetables, including the 2 carrots that were in the broth. Mix the vegetables, cabbage, and the beef in a bowl, along with the chopped thyme leaves, the Worcestershire sauce and some salt. Stir in 1/2 cup of the beef tea broth and any marrow that you can find in the bones.
Line 4 small heat-safe bowls (or ramekins) with the cabbage leaves, leaving some overhang that you can fold over the contents at the end. Add 1/4 of the beef and vegetable mixture to each bowl and fold down the cabbage leaf overhang. Do not press down too hard when doing so as you want a light and airy meat filling, not a compressed meatball center.
Place each ramekin upside down in the remaining beef tea in the pan. Turn the heat to medium, cover the pan, and cook for an additional 12 minutes (for a medium rare center) to 15 minutes (for well done).
Using a spatula, gingerly remove each ramekin covered cabbage bundle to a soup dish. Remove the ramekins and enjoy the pride of having 4 gorgeous little cabbage domes as illustrated above. Pour 1/4 of the remaining broth into each bowl, spooning some over the cabbage before serving.
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