My Grandmother was born in Transylvania prior to WWI and the family recipes calls for the head of cabbage simmered in Vinegar and water until pliable, then roll ground pork and minute rice in the leaf, then place back in the pot of vinegar and water and simmer for 3-4 hours. No tomato or tomato soup. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Interested to see that these recipes all share similar ingredients to my Swedish Grammy's KOLDORMER!I agree with April that it just depends on what country, region, community, family you are from! Most Swedes did not use anything tomato - but they do use butter and a combo of beef and pork... I'm anxious to now make my own "cabbage roll" concoction!!

Try a little switch. I do not boil my cabbage. I freeze it for a few days, take it out and let it thaw completely. This usually takes over night. The cabbage is very pliable and rolls great. Since you are not cooking flavor out of the cabbage before hand. It tastes great.

Mom and Dad were Polish. Mixed hamburger, par boiled rice, onion, two eggs. Rolled in cabbage leaves. 3 slices bacon on bottom with extra cabbage leaves, layer golumpkies in roasting pan. Put three more bacon slices on top with more extra cabbage leaves. Pour V-8 juice, usually two bottles, over dish and roast for 3 to 4 hours on 300°F. Tastes better second day.

My mum comes from Polish heritage and her recipe is the same but she adds in shredded carrots. She boils her golumpki, and they are gorgeous with tomato ketchup. I am attempting to make these today.

If you shave down the thick part of the cabbage leaf stem so it is about half its thickness the golumbki are less chewy. Also sometimes I have a very large cabbage and just want to make a few golumb, so I carefully cut through the stems of just enough of the leaves for my use and peel them off. That way I have the rest of the cabbage for other uses.

I learned how to make golompki from my Polish Mother and have been making them for over 50 years.
I just learned something new from RICH from PA and I can't wait to try freezing the cabbage. Boiling it was always a nuisance.
Thanks Rich

I just made a big pan of Golumpki and made them the way I was tought by my bacchi and mom. I use hamburger and rice seasoning onions and green pepper ground up mix it all together and stuff the leaves and then freeze some for another day. They are the best.

This helped me! Thanks!

My French Canadian friend makes them whenever she visits and always adds two cans of non diluted tomato soup to the top before baking, the tomato soup becomes like a glaze. She also boils them with vinegar and water in the pot but I put a lot more vinegar in so it smells REALLY vinegary but tastes DIVINE!

Got my recipe from a Polish friend. She Tops hers with canned tomatoes tomato soup and saurkraut. It is yummy. Adds a whole different flavor than bland cabbage rolls.

When you buy the cabbage, core it and put in freezer. When ready to make golumbki take out head a day or two in advance and make your rolls without burning your fingers.

Both sides of my family are from Poland and despite the different regions they come from, they both had the same recipe for stuffed cabbage and or peppers. Eaxmple: Half a pound of beef, quarter pound veal and quarter pound pork. In fact the neighborhood I grew up in Brooklyn, NY, if you went into any butcher shop and asked for a pound of meat for stuffed cabbage or peppers, they gave you exactly the combination I mentioned above. However, I can not think of one family we knew in the whole Polish Neighborhood who called these pigs in a blanket. Pigs in a blanket were little hot dogs rolled up in pastry and baked. Both Grandmothers used a tomato soup based sauce that they added different spices and herbs to. My Mother made her own tomato sauce and we always had that as she would jar dozens of bottles each year when our tomato plants were ready.

My mom made the best. The secret ingredient was love.

Easy method for cabbage leaves. Using knife simply cut each leaf away from the cabbage head - at the core... Freeze leaves overnight. Use same pizza cutter to remove the toughest portion of each leaf if you prefer.

... (also use pizza cutter to remove central vein in collards prior to cooking - then shred into the size I want with the cutter. Quick/easy.