So here's what you do: you blanche the cabbage, whole, in a pot big enough, just in water, just enough to loosen the leaves. And then you set it on the worktable, rightside up, and spread the leaves out, and put the farci on the leaves, layer by layer, bringing them back up again.
The farci, today, was a scant pound of beef stewing meat, a generous half pound of pork ditto (I used a rib), chopped fairly fine with a knife. Then a quarter-inch slice of French ham, diced small. To this, add four or five shallots, a couple of cloves of garlic, a few sprigs of parsley and thyme, all minced. Mix them by squeezing the mixture between your fingers. Salt, of course, and pepper, and, why not, some grated nutmeg.
You layer this mixture within the limp leaves of the cabbage, still all of them attached to the head — oh, shucks, I forgot: you've cut the core out of the cabbage head, and taken off the coarsest outer leaves, and chopped them up and added them to the farci.
Then I chopped an onion and sliced thin two carrots and heated them in a little butter in a saucepan, and set the assembled cabbage on those vegetables, and added chicken stock (I didn't have any veal stock, that would have been nicer), and let all this simmer a couple of hours. Delicious. And enough left for another meal. The recipe's from the old Gourmet Cookebook, volume 1.
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