Mushroom Sarmale (gluten free)

This recipe is the queen of the holidays in Romania: it is impossible to find a bunica (grandma) who is not rolling sarmale the night before an important celebration.

The idea is simple: rice and veggies rolled inside of a fermented cabbage leaf. But nevertheless the result is delicious! 

It can be somewhat hard to find a whole fermented cabbage where you live but you can try different options: 

1. go to a Romanian food store and ask for varza murata
2. ferment it yourself at home using the principles of lacto fermentation
3. use a fresh cabbage instead and boil the leaves for a few minutes until they can be used as wrappers for your rolls

In Romania you can, obviously, find the legit rice which is marketed as "sarmale rice" in every shop. What you might not know is that it really is just round rice: the same kind you would use for sushi. So you can either use sushi rice or any other round type of rice (eg. originario). Tipically they are made with white rice but you can also use brown.

Ingredients

*fermented cabbage

If you are able to find it, you could buy a pachet of sarmale condiment such as this one:

Method

The process is very straightforword but somewhat time consuming due to the fact that you have to roll each sarmala individually.

1. First prepare the vegetables and mushrooms by chopping them all into very small pieces. Then, in a large pot, first add some oil while turning on the flame. Only when the oil is hot add the carrot, onion and celery. The quantity of oil is your choice but it should be at least enough to cover the bottom of the pot; it is also ok to omit it but keep in mind that the final taste is going to be different
2. When the onion is translucent (after around 5-10 minutes) add the spices, mix with a wooden spoon and add the rice and the mushrooms along with approximately two glasses (250 mL) of water
3. Cook this mixture until the rice is cooked halfway through (check the cooking time on the package) and add more water if the rice absorbed all of it before the time is up. Then turn off the heat
4. Leave the rice to cool down for a few hours before going to the next step
5. Take your cabbage and cut off all the leaves, then cut each leaf into two or three "sheets" that should roughly be a rectangle just shy of the size of your whole hand. 
6. Scoop up a handful of the rice mixture with either your hand or a spoon. The quantity should be approximately one very heaping spoon or the amount you can hold in your closed fist.
7. Place the cabbage sheet on a working surface and add on it the mixture you measured. Then start rolling the leaf following two methods: the first is to roll it just like a sushi and then "tuck" in each end using your fingers, the second is to roll it like a burrito which means to start rolling it like a sushi but then folding each end in before completing the roll. Watch the image to see what I mean 😆

   

   

8. You will find that some leaves are not viable or that you had to cut off some big stalks in order to use the leaf as a wrapper: don't throw these bits away! Cut them up into smaller pieces and add them to the bottom of a large pot. When you are done rolling every sarmala, carefully place each one in the same pot until it is full. 
9. Add on the top of the sarmale the tomato sauce and then water until they are covered by about one finger. 
10. Cook them for at least 1.5 hours on a low flame and enjoy 😊