Stuffed Cabbage (golubci)

These stuffed cabbages are a very popular Russian dish. They are served with sour cream. I always mix my regular sour cream with a little milk to make it a little thinner and it tastes better like that too.

Recipe.
1 head of cabbage
1 LB ground beef
1 LB ground pork
1 cup rice
1 egg
1 Tbsp mayonnaise
1  small piece of bread or dinner roll
little bit of milk (to soak the bread in)
1/2-1 onion
salt and pepper to taste
tomato paste (optional)

Preparation.
1. Cut the stem out of the cabbage, Put the cabbage in a big pot fill with water and boil until the cabbage is nice and soft but don't overcook or the leaves will fall apart.

2. When the cabbage is cooked strain it and let it cool. Take all the leaves apart and cut the veins either off or just shave them off so that they're not so thick and the cabbage leaf is flexible.

3. Take the soaked bread squeeze out extra milk and put the bread through the meat grinder with the onions, or put both in a blender and blend.

4. Ground meat, rice, egg, mayonnaise, bread and onions, salt and pepper plus the optional tomato paste. Mix everything together very well.

5. Take one cabbage leaf and lay it flat put some meat mixture at the top and roll.

6. Boil some water, put a couple small cabbage leafs at the bottom of a pot add a little bit of sour cream and tomato paste or ketchup and now pour a little bit of water on top just to melt the sour cream and the tomato paste.

7. Start layering the cabbage rolls now, stuff them as tight as you can. now pour boiling water on top to cover.

8. Put the pot on the stove on high heat, when it starts boiling lower the temperature to medium or med-low (this will depend on your stove) and let everything shimmer for about 45mins.

9. Serve topped with sour cream

If you have left over stuffing roll it in to meatballs and cook the same as the regular stuffed cabbage.