Runza

My husband and his brother were traveling through Nebraska recently. They were trying to decide where to stop for supper when they passed a billboard for a restaurant called Runza. They didn't know anything about the restaurant, and frankly the name scared them away--they decided on Subway instead. When he got home we looked Runza up on the Internet and the actual runza sandwich sounded very interesting. I guess it originates from Germany. It's browned ground beef that's been cooked with cabbage or sauerkraut, then stuffed in bread dough and cooked. It sounded kind of gross, but I guess they are very popular in the Midwest. I wanted to try one, but I didn't want to go through the work of making them unless I knew they were going to be good. Needless to say, I am a very curious person so the curiosity overruled my fear of wasting my time making something I didn't like...plus I needed to make homemade bread anyway so I killed two birds with one stone.

The other reason I wanted to try it out was because it's similar to a food my husband ate on his LDS mission to South Africa. They called it "bunny-chow." It's curried ground beef stuffed into bread dough and cooked. It's of Dutch descent, so I guess meat stuffed into bread dough is popular in that part of Europe :-)

I must admit I was afraid they'd taste way too much like cabbage, but they didn't at all. The cabbage added a nice moisture to the meat. They tasted like they could use something else, so I added ketchup to mine when they were done. Since I'm kind of a western girl and I like good old fashioned western cooking, I think one day I might try my own variation and turn it into a sloppy joe runza. Anyway, I'll quit yackin' now...here's how to make runza:

You'll need to prepare one batch of bread dough. While it's raising for the first time, shred half a head of cabbage. Then saute some onion in a little bit of oil. I didn't use very much onion because my husband hates onions, but use as much as you want. Then add a pound of ground beef to the onion and brown it. Season it generously with salt and pepper. When the meat is browned, sprinkle the cabbage over the top of meat. Stir occasionally until the cabbage is cooked and soft.

Roll out pieces of your bread dough into rectangles. Mine were about 5" x 7". Place 1/2 cup of the cabbage meat mixture on a rectangle. Fold the long edges over top of the meat and seal all the edges. Flip it over so it's seam side down and place on some parchment paper on a cookie sheet. Bake them at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes or until the bread dough is lightly browned and cooked. Enjoy :)