Recently I discovered that stuffed cabbages with potatoes or groats are a traditional dish on the Ukrainian Christmas Eve table. Much like in Poland, in Ukraine the Christmas Eve supper is a meat-free meal, which means my proposal today couldn't be on the Christmas Eve table. I enriched the filling with American bacon and instead of white cabbage I used savoy cabbage. Though the combination of cabbage and potatoes seems to be strange, the net effect was very interesting. The perfect complement for this dish is a thick flavorsome mushroom sauce.

Ingredients:

Stuffed cabbage

1 savoy cabbage

1 kg of potatoes

2 onions

150g of American bacon

2 eggs

2 tablespoons of marjoram

salt and pepper

1 Knorr mushroom cube

sauce

a fistful of dried mushrooms

half an onion

2 teaspoons of butter

2 tablespoons of heavy cream

salt and pepper

Rinse the mushrooms and leave to soak in warm water.

Preparation of stuffed cabbage:

Slice off from the cabbage the thickest root and cut the stump off. Boil the cabbage in a big pot, and, little by little, take the leaves off. Cover the bottom of the pot for stewing with the not so nice leaves. Cut the big vein from the nice leaves. Peel the potatoes and grate them. Slice the onion and bacon, and fry the bacon in a dry saucepan. Don't clean the saucepan, and fry the onion in the bacon fat. Add the onion, American bacon, eggs and marjoram to the grated potatoes and spice it up with salt and pepper. Mix everything together thoroughly. Put the portions of filling on the leaves, wrap them up tightly and put them close together into the pot. Pour in the water, add the Knorr mushroom cube and stew for 45 minutes. Serve with mushroom sauce.

Preparing the sauce

Boil the wet mushrooms for 30 minutes. Melt one teaspoon of butter in a pan and fry the diced onion. Add this to the mushrooms and boil for another 10 minutes. Blend it. Add a teaspoon of butter and cream to the hot sauce. Spice it up with salt and pepper.

Enjoy your meal!