Kålpudding (“Cabbage Pudding”)

“Kålpudding” is a traditional Swedish dish using the same ingredients as cabbage rolls (“kåldolmar”), but instead of wrapping the meat mixture in cabbage you layer it in an oven tray.
Original recipes often calls for rice and/or breadcrumbs to be added to the meat mixture, syrup to be added to the cabbage and is traditionally served with potatoes, brown gravy thickened with wheat flour and lingonberry jam…
…of course we can’t have none of that (we now know better ;) ), so I have made a Paleo/LCHF friendly version of it for you.
I do use a little bit of honey in this recipe though (about 1/2 – 1/4 of the amount of syrup often used), but you can absolutely skip that if it does not fit in your diet.
Also, it’s a big batch…for 6-8 persons depending on appetite.

…now that’s Swedishness on a plate right there. ;)

Ingredients:
• 1 lb ground Beef.
• 1 lb ground Pork.
• 1 Onion, minced.
• 1/4 cup cold Water.
• 2 tbsp Beef Stock.
• 1 tbsp Coconut Aminos (or Tamari)
• 1/4 tsp ground Allspice.
• 2 heads of Cabbage.
• 3 tsp Honey.
• ground White Pepper.
• crushed Black Pepper.
• Salt.
• Butter.

How To:
Pre-heat oven to about 400F.
–
Remove the hard core from the cabbage heads, and then cut the heads in halves.
Cut three of the cabbage head halves in larger pieces (each piece about the size of a stamp) and set aside.
Cut the 4th half in much smaller pieces and set aside separately.
–
Heat up a frying pan, add a bit of butter and fry the larger pieces in batches (about 1/2 head per batch).
For each batch, season with salt and white pepper while frying and keep frying until the cabbage has turned brown, stirring every once in a while. When it’s got a nice brown color, drizzle 1 tsp honey over it, stir and set aside (make sure the honey does not burn).
When the three batches of larger cabbage pieces are done, do the same for the finely cut cabbage but without the honey, and set aside separately.
–
Put the ground meat, minced onion, cold water, tamari, beef stock, allspice, and the fried finely chopped cabbage in a bowl. Season with salt and crushed black pepper, and work it thoroughly with your hands until everything is evenly blended into a solid mixture.
–
Cover the bottom of a large oven tray with half of the fried larger pieces of cabbage, then spread out the meat mixture on top of the cabbage and quite firmly press it with your hands (making one layer of meat that is like a big patty covering the bottom cabbage layer).
Spread out the other half of fried larger pieces of cabbage on top of the meat, and place the tray in the middle of the oven.
–
It’s done after about 30-40 minutes.

I served this together with a fresh salad and a gravy made by frying 1 finely chopped onion in bacon fat until translucent. Then add a little bit of beef stock, 1 cup smetana and dash of tamari for color. Make it thinner by adding high fat cream until preffered thickness, and season with white pepper to taste.
(Bonus recipe! ;))

That’s it, hope you’ll enjoy! :)

PS. …this “kålpudding” is absolutely both Paleo and LCHF!
The gravy on the other hand, is only LCHF compliant.