Galumpkis (Stuffed Cabbage)

[donsabi]

It looks like I will have a bumper crop of cabbage this years. Of course I will be making sauerkraut and using it for ham or cornbeef and cabbage fresh. I will also be making galumpkis.

Every time I cook a dish that has ground beef in it and then freeze it I find there is an odd taste imparted from the ground beef. I dislike it so much I no longer freeze meatballs and other ground beef dishes.

I would like to freeze a bunch of galumpkis but they are a lot of work to make. Freezing them and then finding they don't taste so good after reheating is something I would like to avoid. I wondered if anyone else has a way to freeze dishes with ground beef in them without altering the flavor to something unsatisfactory. Comments appreciated, thanks.

 

[DaveSoMD]

I freeze them all the time. I use my food saver and vacuum-seal about 4 in a bag. The only time I have had a problem was when the bag didn't seal properly and I got some freezer burn.

 

[CharlieD]

I am not sure it has anything to do with meat it self. I'd check the way you freeze and store. Of course ready made products frozen don't keep it's taste as well as raw meat, I would not recomend to keep it for too long.

P.S. I'm just wondering where is the name coming from. becasue in Ukrainian they calle Golubtsi or some people called them Galupki?

 

[DaveSoMD]

That is how my family has always spelled it...Polish descent here.

 

[Dawgluver]

I learn something new every day on DC. Had never heard of Galumpkis.

I've started grinding my own beef, ground chuck is awesome. Would that help?

 

[Andy M.]

This is a dish of many different names. fillings wrapped in vegetable leaves were and ancient staple in many parts of the world. My Armenian ancestors wrapped cabbage leaves around lamb and rice and braised them. They also used grape leaves. We call them dolma and serve them with yogurt. The Greeks call them dolmades and serve them with a lemon sauce. The Jewish community called them holoshkis.

Golampkis (or whatever you call them) are all over Eastern Europe and beyond. They are popular because they were cheap eats for poor people.

 

[Aunt Bea]

I make small batches of them fresh except for the ground beef. I don't care for the texture of the cabbage after it has been frozen.

When I buy ground beef I cook it with whatever vegetables I have on hand. Sometimes it includes garlic, onion, celery, peppers or mushrooms. I freeze it in plastic deli containers and then when I make a small batch of cabbage rolls I use the outer leaves of the cabbage along with some leftover rice and tomato juice or diced tomatoes. The rest of the cabbage usually gets shredded for a salad or some other casserole. I have never had a problem with the ground beef tasting off.

The containers of ground beef mixture are great for hurry up batches of Spanish rice, chili, goulash etc.

At this time of year you can also wrap them in Swiss chard leaves that have been lightly blanched. The leaves are more tender than cabbage leaves so it is better if you use two or three leaves instead of one.

 

[donsabi]

I spoke with a butcher about this and he told me he thinks the problem is using previously frozen ground beef. He told me lots of food stores buy their ground beef frozen and allow it to thaw leading people think that it is fresh.

I bought some fresh ground beef and made a batch of galumpkis. First I made a hamburger to taste the ground beef and it was fine. The galumpkis came out excellent. I refrigerated the remainder. Tonight I will reheat the refrigerated galumpkis and check the flavor. The balance will go in the freezer and I will check on them later this week.

Since the advent of the industrial feed lots for cattle I noticed that the flavor has also change. Cattle are force fed corn and I think that corn is effecting the flavor of the beef especially the fat. This is very noticeable when the meat is cooked, frozen and then reheated. The same is true of chicken. My mother would usually cook a bunch of chicken on Sunday and we would eat the refrigerated chicken through the week. I find that chicken today has a terrible flavor when I do this. The only difference is when I used free range chicken.
Once again I think the problem is in the feed fed to the animals in these industrial settings.

 

[CWS4322]

Hi Donsabi--will be interested re: what you think after you do your taste test. Have you considered grinding your own ground beef?

 

[donsabi]

Update on refrigerated galumpkis. I reheated these galumplkis over a few days and found no difference in flavor. Actually I thought the flavor may have improved somewhat. This may show that the butcher was correct in his theory about previously frozen ground beef.

For the final phase I froze the remaining galumpkis in different ways. One with aluminum foil covered with plastic wrap, plastic wrap alone, plastic wrapped and vacuum sealed, and foil wrapped and vacuum sealed. I am only going to keep them in the freezer for a week and then reheat and taste them.

Many years ago when I fished salt water and had many good catches I did a test on the taste of frozen fish vs time. I learned that the longer the fish is frozen the more the flavor degraded. After one month in my freezer I really did not care for the fish. Keep in mind I had no way to flash freeze and my home freezer was probably holding at -20 to -10F.

CWS4322,

I do grind beef but usually steak. This is very lean and does not have the same flavor of ground chuck. I do this more for health than taste. If I cannot find a trusted supplier of ground beef I will start grinding my own chuck. Once again how do we ensure these meats have not been previously frozen. Secondly I believe there is a definite taste difference in industrial beef and free range grass fed beef that is more pronounced after freezing.

 

[donsabi]

Update: as part of my experiment I froze some of the original ground beef as a hamburger patty. This past week end I cooked it on the grill with nothing added. The flavor was off and that proved to me that this unsavory flavor imparted by freezing is limited to industrial beef no matter if it is caused by the corn the cattle are fed, stress, A/B or hormones. Freezing seems to concentrated one of these items altering the taste of the meat.

My test on galumpkis doesn't matter because any taste test would be skewed by the tomato and seasonings used in cooking.

I came across the following article I thought was interesting. However the author does not include freezing as part of the taste taste. I believe that freezing industrial ground beef does alter the taste by imparting an unsavory component.

Taste Test: Chemicals in Factory-Farmed Meat - Food Media - Food News - CHOW

 

[donsabi]

I am the OP. After two months or so I got around to testing my freezer galumpkis. Very disappointed to say the least. The taste was off a bit and the texture of the cabbage was deteriorated. After all the work to make galumpkis IMO freezing is not an alternative. I tried three ways of packing, plastic wrapped, plastic wrapped and then foil wrapped, and finally vacuum sealed. The results were the same with all methods.

 

[Dawgluver]

Thank you for the report, Donsabi, this was very interesting.

 

[Margi Cintrano]

Greek Stuffed Cabbage

Buon Giorno, Good Morning,

Below, please find photo of my Greek stuffed cabbage wraps, filled with ground beef ...

Gladly, I have never froze mine, however, when I freeze leftovers, I am always extremely careful to place the food items in special freezer baggies and I have freezer stickers & special writing marker, which are prepared to stay; and the info I place:

the date, and name of the food on the bag ...

This recipe is in the vegetable section for those interested.

Better luck in future,
Have lovely summer,
Margaux.

 

[motiv8or]

That is how my family has always spelled it...Polish descent here.

hi there

my mum was actually talking to me about this today, said she's noticed a lot of people are spelling it "galumpkis". we are also polish and i can say with 100% certainty its spelled gołąbki. in the absence of a polish keyboard, golabki would probably be the proper english version.

hope that helps!

 

[PrincessFiona60]

hi there

my mum was actually talking to me about this today, said she's noticed a lot of people are spelling it "galumpkis". we are also polish and i can say with 100% certainty its spelled gołąbki. in the absence of a polish keyboard, golabki would probably be the proper english version.

hope that helps!

I have a Polish friend who would disagree with you. I guess it's possible that it is spelled differently in different parts of the country. And then there are the folks just over the border who cook the same thing and call it something different.

 

[Andy M.]

My partly Polish SO calls them galumpies. As I mentioned in my earlier post, there are many variations to the name. Even within the same country, perhaps based on whether you are in the northest or southwest of the country (or whatever). Arguing about the variations of the food name is a futile as arguing about the correct ingredients for the dish.

 

[motiv8or]

I have a Polish friend who would disagree with you. I guess it's possible that it is spelled differently in different parts of the country. And then there are the folks just over the border who cook the same thing and call it something different.

sorry but your friend is wrong. there are no variations on the spelling, they're called gołąbki/golabki. galumpkis is just plain wrong. it's like spelling gnocchi as nockie and saying it's a regional variation.

i know that there's variations between the ukrainian and polish spelling, as is the same thing with variations on russian versus polish spelling for some other foods.

but in polish at least, gołąbki is correct. i'm convinced your friend is incorrect in this instance

 

[Andy M.]

Do you also have the only correct recipe for this dish?

 

[motiv8or]

Do you also have the only correct recipe for this dish?

no of course that's not what i am trying to get at. all i mean, is that GALUMPKIS looks and sounds very ridiculous. how do you even pronounce it??

for starters, when referring to a plural in polish, you don't add an "s" on the end, as the "i" that finishes the word signifies the plural term. hence - one gołąb, or multiple gołąbki. adding an "s" on the end is anglicising the word.

as i said, it's like writing "nockie" for gnocchi.

i'm not saying i'm the be all and end all on the topic (far from it, i've only made them a handful of times in my life!) but i can say with 100% certainty that the spelling in this instance is dead set wrong.

as far as recipes, there are many variations i'm sure.

i'm not having a go at anyone, no need to get defensive. i'm just trying to point out a cultural oversight.