Vegetarian Sarmale (Cabbage Rolls) with Mushrooms.

2 heads of cabbage
1 cup of rice
3 big onions
2 carrots
100 g raisins
400g mushrooms (tinned)
0.5 l of tomato juice or 3 tbs of tomato paste
spices: dill, parsley, savory fresh if possible, one bundle of each
stock (the kind of stuff we used for soup at the fair trade café, yellow powder), salt, pepper, two potatoes


Clean the potatoes and cut them into rounds. Unmake the cabbage leaves and clean them, cut them into small pieces and leave them in cold water along with the potatoes. Put the rice into cold water. Cut the onion into small pieces, clean the carrot and grate it, cut the mushrooms and drain the juice. In a pot put some oil and fry the onion, the carrot and the rice, with a little bit of salt, adding a bit of water after a while. Stir often. After 20 minutes, put the mushrooms and the raisins. Leave it to boil 10 minutes and put the tomato juice/paste diluted with water. After 15 minutes, add the spices, finely chopped, and put the pot to cool down. Take the cabbage leaves and the middle bits, pressing them in your palms so as to drain the water. You no longer need the potatoes and the water. In every leaf of cabbage put, with a teaspoon, of the mixture, roll the leaf and fold in the ends so the rice doesn’t come out. Don’t make the roll too tight because the rice will still grow during the cooking process. Put the sarmale on a platter and turn the oven on. The remaining leaves and the middle bits you chop very finely, and you put the juice on them and with them you cover the bottom of the pot in which you want to put the sarmale. Put a row of sarmale, put the cimbru and continue with the sarmale until you finish. On top you put the rest of the cabbage that was left over. Leave the pot until it boils on the cooker, then put the lid and put it into the oven. They need to stay there two hours, on low fire, after which you try to cut one sarma with a fork, and if you can cut it, they’re ready to be eaten….
Pofta buna!