Cabbage á la Romana (Roman-Style Stuffed Cabbage)

Ingredients

• 1 cabbage (repollo)
• salt
• sausage meat (carnes de salchicha)
• cooked poultry giblets (menudos de ave)
• bread crumb (miga de pan)
• pepper
• 1 pinch cumin (cominos)
• 2 egg yolks (yemas de huevo)
• 1/2 tablespoon oil
• 1/2 tablespoon vinegar
• butter (mantequilla)
• hen livers (hígados de gallina)
• bacon (tocino)
• cooked sauce (salsa cocida)
• 4 tablespoons good broth (caldo)
• parsley
• 1 shallot (chalote)
• mushrooms (setas)
• truffles (trufas)
• 1/2 glass Champagne wine (vino Champagne)
• pickled gherkins (pepinillos escabechados)

Instructions

1. Tie a thread around a well-shaped cabbage and parboil it in salted water for a light first cooking; lift out, wrap in a cloth, press dry, stand on a plate, remove the thread, and open it like a rose.
2. Grind in a mortar sausage meat, cooked poultry giblets and bread crumb; season with pepper, a pinch of cumin, and salt if needed.
3. Bind with two half-beaten egg yolks; add half a spoonful of oil, half of vinegar and a hazelnut-size piece of butter, and mix well.
4. Spread the filling inside and outside each leaf, fold the leaves back over the heart (itself filled with chopped hen livers), and retie the thread.
5. Line a tall casserole with bacon slices drizzled with cooked sauce, stand the cabbage on it, cover, and cook slowly with embers on top and moderate fire below.
6. For the sauce, simmer four spoonfuls of broth with chopped parsley, a shallot, cooked sliced mushrooms and truffles, and a spoonful of butter, salt and pepper, half an hour until the broth is consumed.
7. Add a spoonful of oil, then half a glass of Champagne; stir briefly, remove from heat, and serve the cabbage standing on the sauce, wedged with pickled gherkins.