Finnish style cabbage casserole

White cabbage casserole is one of the Finnish traditional comfort food and home cooking dishes. Usually the rice and egg-milk-mixture is used for this dish, but actually I prefer barley and beef stock. This way the cabbage tastes more and the texture is more moist. People eat this with mashed lingonberries which are seasoned with sugar. But, again, I prefer without sugar. I like the acidiness of the berries with a bit sweet casserole. It is nice contrast.

So here is my version of the Finnish style cabbage casserole, here you go!

Cabbage casserole
4-6 persons
750 g white cabbage
400 g minced meat (mixed pork and beef)
1 dl pearl barley
1 onion
2-3 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp dried marjoram
Salt & allspice
approx. 500 ml beef stock
2 tbsp (dark) syrap

Peel the onion and chop it, shred the cabbage. Set aside. Boil 400 ml water, add barley and bring to a boil. Simmer 20 minutes, until fully cooked.
Heat the skillet and cook the minced meat until nicely brown. Remove the meat from the skillet, add onion and cabbage to pan and cook until some browned. Season with soy sauce, marjoram.
In a large bowl, mix together cabbage, onion, minced meat and barley. Place the mixture in the casserole dish, pour the beef stock in. Drain the syrap on top of the mixture.
Bake, in lower part of the oven, 175-200 C an hour or so. If the surface gets too dark, cover with tin foil. 
Serve with mashed lingonberries.

Mashed lingonberries
200 ml lingonberries
2 tbsp sugar

Mash the berries and add sugar.