Adding a little Twist to Estonian Cooking

Unfortunately life is not all about celebration and this blog will not be all about festive dishes and desserts. Let's face it, daily dishes cannot be too demanding.

Baked Cabbage Stew

This is actually my mother's recent creation that I repeated myself a few days ago and later made a completely new dish out of it. In fact this is a very typical Estonian dish, which has been now spiced up with ginger and garlic.

The quantities are stated roughly, so feel free be creative! :)

- raw head cabbage, chopped into small pieces (i think I had a bit over a half of it)

- 2 raw carrots, finely grated

- 1 onion, finely chopped

- 2 garlic cloves, finely grated or chopped

- minced meat (I had a mix of beef and lamb), cannot recall the exact quantity, but I bet it was something around 200-300 gr

- raw ginger, about 2-3 cm piece, finely chopped

First you fry the minced meat with garlic, onion and ginger, then add carrots and cabbage and continue until the ingredients are soft (pay attention to cabbage). At some point you may want to add a bit of water so that the dish maintains its juiciness. Don't forget to add salt, pepper and maybe a bit of sugar to balance the flavours. Then move it to the oven at 200 C for 20 minutes or so until it has browned a bit on top.  I stirred it once or twice while it was in the oven as well.

Typically we eat this cabbage stew with boiled potatoes.