AI-generated Sarma with Kobasica
Recipes with Slavonska Kobasica
Sour cabbage rolls filled with minced meat, rice and leek, layered in a clay pot with smoked ribs, bacon and coarse chunks of kobasica. This is the version Rade Kolbas learned from his mother; as far as he knows, the recipe comes from southern Serbia. The mince gets no salt at all, because the sour cabbage, rinsed only briefly, and the smoked meat season it. It cooks slowly, four to five hours at about 120 °C.
Prep Time
45 min
Cook Time
4-5 hours
Servings
8
Difficulty
Medium
Ingredients
- 1 large head of sour cabbage (kiseli kupus)
- 650 g mixed minced meat
- 150 g rice (uncooked)
- 1 leek, finely chopped
- 300 g half-dried Slavonian kobasica, cut into coarse chunks
- 200 g smoked pork ribs
- 100 g smoked bacon
- 2 tbsp sweet paprika
- Black pepper
- Water to cover
- Sour cream for serving
Steps
Soak the Römertopf in cold water for 15 minutes. Separate the cabbage leaves and rinse them only briefly: they should stay salty, because the filling gets no salt.
Mix the mince with the raw rice, leek, paprika and pepper. No salt.
Put a spoonful of filling on each leaf, fold in the sides and roll up tightly. Do not overfill: the rice swells.
Line the pot with leftover cabbage. Lay the rolls in two or three layers, and between the layers tuck ribs, bacon and the kobasica chunks. Cut the kobasica coarsely, not into thin slices. Cover with cabbage leaves and add water to the top.
Put the closed pot into a cold oven, set it to about 120 °C and let it cook slowly for 4 to 5 hours. Longer is almost always better, within reason.
Serve the rolls with the smoked meat, the kobasica and plenty of the cooking liquid, sour cream on the side.
Tips
The kobasica should give the pot its paprika and a little heat without taking over; that is why it goes in as coarse chunks. Sarma tastes better on the second day. In Slavonia it is more often cooked in a pot on the stove and served with its broth; at weddings it often comes together with stuffed peppers.