Gołąbki

For other uses, see Gołąbki (disambiguation).

Gołąbki (Polish pronunciation: [ɡɔˈwɔmpki] ^ⓘ) is the Polish name of a dish popular in cuisines of Central and Eastern Europe, made from boiled cabbage leaves wrapped around a filling of minced pork or beef, chopped onions, and rice and/or kasza.

Gołąbki

Gołąbki served with tomato sauce and vegetables
Alternative names	галубцы/hałubcy голубцы, golubtsy голубці, holubtsi holubky
Course	Appetizer or main
Place of origin	Poland Belarus
Region or state	Central and Eastern Europe
Created by	Lipka Tatars, West Slavs, East Slavs
Serving temperature	Hot or cold
Main ingredients	Cabbage, pork or beef
Ingredients generally used	onions, rice or kasza, bolete mushrooms
Media: Gołąbki

Gołąbki are often served during festive occasions such as weddings, holidays such as Christmas Day, and other family events.^[1][2]

They can also be prepared using a number of various fillings instead of meat or rice, including mashed potatoes, boiled eggs, barley groats and others. In some variants, the cabbage leaves may sometimes be substituted with vine leaves or fermented instead of fresh cabbage leaves.

Etymology

Gołąbki is the plural form of gołąbek, the diminutive form of gołąb ("pigeon, dove"). Max Vasmer accepts this as the origin of the word, stating that the dish was so named due to similarity in shape. The Polish linguist Marek Stachowski finds this theory semantically dubious. He instead proposes an Oriental borrowing, pointing out that a similar dish, aside from Eastern Europe, is known in the Levant and Central Asia. He mentions Persian کلم kalam "cabbage" or کلم پیچ kalam pič "cabbage roll" and Old Armenian կաղամբ kałamb "cabbage" as possible sources. The word would have later been altered by folk etymology to resemble the word for the bird.^[3]

Other names

Main article: Cabbage roll

Gołąbki are also referred to in English as golombki, golumpki, golabki, golumpkies, golumpkis, gluntkes, or gwumpki.^[1][2][4] Similar variations are called holubky (Czech, Slovak), sarmale (Romanian), töltött káposzta (Hungarian), holubtsi (Ukrainian), golubtsy (Russian), balandėliai (Lithuanian), Kohlrouladen (German) or kåldolmar (Sweden, from the Turkish dolma). In Yiddish, holipshes, goleptzi golumpki and holishkes or holep are very similar dishes.^[5]

In the United States, the terms are commonly Anglicized by second- or third-generation Americans to "stuffed cabbage", "stuffed cabbage leaves", or "cabbage casserole".^[1][2][4][6] They are also referred to as "pigs in a blanket",^[7][8] not to be confused with pigs in blankets in British and Irish cuisine, and affectionately called "Hunky hand grenades."

See also

• List of cabbage dishes