Tony Packo's Cabbage Rolls Recipe
by Liv | Published on October 21st, 2005, 11:04 am | Food
Tony Packo's Pigs in The Blanket / Cabbage Rolls Recipe
What would you say If I told you I woke up this morning and said I have Pigs In The Blanket for Breakfast? What would come to mind?
Sausages Wrapped in Pancakes?
You would be wrong.
I am German, Polish & Welsh after all and unfortunately the south has some weird idea of what Pigs in the Blanket actually is. I of course learned about the atrocity when I first moved to North Carolina about 20 years ago.
At first you get excited and see your favorite treat on the menu, and then it's delivered and you're like "WTF!?"
So what did I have for breakfast?
It was leftovers from last night. It was what sometimes called cabbage rolls. Oh and they where so-o... good. This is the breakfast of champions here. Beef, Pork, & Rice wrapped in cabbage; slowly simmered in a tomato & cream sauce for many, many hours. Sided with sauerkraut. Forget silly little sausage biscuits, this will get you firing on all 8 cylinders.
In Toledo you get Pigs at a restaurant called Tony Packos. They're famous for their chili, hot dogs, and lastly their Hungarian Cabbage rolls locally known in kitchens everywhere as "Pigs in the Blanket." While there recipe isn't a big secret to families who've made these delectable dishes for ages, you might find such a world renowned recipe difficult to find in these days of copyrights and trademarks. This is real, true to god Hungarian recipe. So here's Tony Packo's recipe for wonderful Hungarian Pigs in the blanket as passed down from my 80 year old grandmother in Toledo.:
Ingredients for Tony Packo's Cabbage Rolls Recipe
Directions Tony Packo's Pigs Recipe
1-Take one cup of rice in two cups of water and add 1 Knorr vegetable bouillon and bring to a boil.
Reduce heat to medium-low and cover for 18 minutes..
2- Place head of cabbage in a large pot and fill with water, bring to boil then remove from heat.
3-Take a large mixing bowel and into it place the pork, beef, rice, paprika, garlic, eggs, sugar, salt & pepper.
4-Mix bowl with hands.
5-Remove and separate full leaves of cabbage off head.
6-Take hand sized lumps of meat mixture and place on a cabbage leaf.
7-Roll cabbage leaves around meat in a burrito fashion tucking both ends in.
8-Pour a small amount of tomato sauce on bottom of pot.
9-Place rolled stuffed cabbage into pot(s).
10- Place remainder of tomato sauce over pigs.
11-Place lid(s) on pot(s)
12-Set timer for 2 hours and simmer on a low heat adding water as needed to keep rolls covered.
13-Saute' 2 small chopped onions in 1/4 cup butter and then remove from heat.
14-Stir in 1 tablespoon of sour cream and can of tomato soup with onions.
15-At approximately 1.5 hours cooking time, add sour cream sauce and sauerkraut into pot of cabbage rolls.
After about 2 hours you can lower your heat even more, and simmer for even more tender piggies, or eat em' all up like a little piggy!
