1 large head cabbage

1 cup brown basmati rice

½-1 teaspoon salt

olive oil

1 large onion, minced

2 carrots, shredded

2 stalks celery, shredded

1 bunch parsley, minced

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 package soysage (LiteLife’s “Gimme Lean” is the best, in my opinion)

½-1 cup roasted almonds, chopped

2 large cans tomatoes (or 3-4 pounds fresh tomatoes, peeled and chopped)

tamari

turbinado sugar

lemon juice

black pepper

To prepare the cabbage:

Give the bottom of the cabbage a good solid thonk on the floor and, with a knife, remove as much of the core as possible. Steam the cabbage, whole, in a covered pot with about 1 inch of boiling water in the bottom. As the outer leaves soften, remove them (you can usually take off 3-4 at a time) and set them aside to cool. Watch your hands on the hot steam and be careful not to tear the leaves. When the leaves get to be smaller than the palm of your hand, take what’s left of the head out of the pot, halve and core it, and shred it into sauerkraut-sized shreds. Reserve the cabbage water.

When the leaves have cooled a bit, pare off the big vein on the outside, being careful not to cut through the leaf itself.

To prepare the rice:

Dry-roast the brown basmati in a skillet until it begins to toast and pop. It will smell delicious. Cook as usual with 2 cups water (you can use some of the cabbage water here) and salt, if desired.

To prepare the stuffing:

Saute the onion in olive oil until it begins to wilt. Add shredded carrot and celery and sauté until they begin to brown. Crumble soysage into the pan and continue sautéing a few minutes. Add the rice, parsley, oregano, and almonds, and stir until everything is well-mixed. Add 1-2 cups tomatoes, with juice, and stir until most of the liquid is absorbed. Season to taste with pepper and tamari.

To stuff the cabbage leaves:

Put a cabbage leaf in the palm of your hand, with the outer side down. Dollop 1-3 tablespoons of filling into the middle of the leaf (the amount will depend on how big the leaf is.) Pull the stem end of the leaf over until it completely covers the filling. Then fold in the sides, and roll towards the top of the leaf. You should have a nice, tight little package with no stuffing showing at all. Place in baking dish or casserole (be sure to use one with a cover) and continue until you’ve used up all of the filling or all the cabbage leaves, whichever comes first. (There’s no need to oil the baking dish.)

If there are extra cabbage leaves, shred them now and strew them with the rest of the shredded cabbage over top of the cabbage rolls. If there’s extra filling, eat it for lunch.

To prepare the tomato topping:

Mix the remaining chopped tomatoes with sugar, lemon juice, tamari, and pepper to taste.

It should be fairly juicy; add cabbage water if it’s too dry. Pour over top of the cabbage rolls. Bake, covered, at 350° for 1½-2 hours. Check periodically towards the end of the baking period; add water if necessary.

The cabbage rolls are done when you can pierce them easily with the tines of a fork.

Serves 13 (of course).

The form that it takes is simple: whole grains (wheat, barley, rice) boiled in liquid (milk, water, almond milk), sweetened with honey, enriched with nuts and/or dried fruits. In Poland, it’s said to date from the time “before there were mills to grind the grain.” Ancestral to England’s plum pudding (frumenty, as it was called, was an invariable part of the medieval English Yule-board), the origin of Scandinavia’s Yuletide rice puddings, the recipe surely dates back to—if not precedes—the advent of agriculture.

Remember that the ancestors didn’t get sweets very often, and probably reserved them for the highest of holidays (such as the Winter Solstice, a date of major significance to agricultural communities virtually everywhere). Then the standard boiled-grain pottage that everyone ate everyday would be embellished with a hoarded lump of honeycomb in honor of the occasion. Bear in mind also that virtually everywhere religious ritual tends to preserve archaic cultural forms that have otherwise died out in everyday usage.

So it’s more than possible—likely even—that this dish may date to Neolithic times, perhaps to the very discovery of cereal agriculture itself, more than 11,000 years ago.

Below is the version that my coven serves on Midwinter’s Eve, based originally on a Russian recipe. It’s the first dish in our thirteen-course Yule feast (one course for each moon of the coming year). By the light of a lone beeswax taper thrust into the middle of the pudding, we ritually renew our familial solidarity by together eating from the shared central bowl, just as our ancestors did more than ten thousand years ago.

Kutyá: Yule Wheat

1 cup wheat berries

2 cups blanched almonds

½ teaspoon salt

¼ cup whole blue poppy seeds

3-5 tablespoons honey

1 tablespoon rose water

Soak wheat berries overnight in water to cover. In a separate bowl, soak 1½ cups of the almonds in 3 cups of water, also overnight.

Next day, puree the soaked almonds with their soaking water. Add 3 more cups of water to the puree and strain through a cloth, wringing well to extract as much almond milk as possible (I use an old pillowcase). Discard almond pulp.

In a non-reactive pan, bring drained wheat berries and almond milk to a simmer. Lower heat and continue cooking until wheat berries become tender (this is likely to take 2-3 hours, depending on the age and variety of the wheat berries). You’ll need to stir frequently (sunwise only, please!), especially towards the end of the cooking as the almond milk thickens. When the wheat berries are tooth-tender, add poppy seeds and salt, and cook 15-20 minutes more.

During the cooking, dry roast the remaining ½ cup almonds until golden brown, either in a skillet (stirring constantly) or in a 325° oven; this will take approximately 5 to 7 minutes.

Sweeten the kutya with honey to taste, and stir in rose water. Turn out into serving bowl, and garnish with dry-roasted almonds. Serve hot, room temperature, or chilled.

Serves 13. (Of course.)

© Steven Posch