Boiled Cabbage

[muninnhuginn]

It's cabbage... again. There is definitely a point in the year when cabbage comes a little too often in the veg. box (a bit like the squash challenge in the autumn, but a duller veg. in a drearier time of year) and it's not nice crinkly savoy or crunchy red, but just plain white. Oh well. We'll boil it again. Of course, adding chopped fresh apple, a large handful or sultanas, a decent teaspoonful of fresh chopped ginger and a vegetable stock cube does help.

So it's boiled cabbage and beef coming up.

Comments

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

Fried cabbage with bacon and onions for me tonight! And coleslaw is very nice with a bit of red pesto stirred in :-)

[muninnhuginn]

Bacon. Could have added some of that quite happily.
Pesto? I have a suspicion that pesto has something in it I don't/can't eat. Cheese?

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

(Belated follow-up) As it happens, I was using Sainsbury's FreeFrom Red Pesto, which contains no dairy or gluten :-)

[muninnhuginn]

Thank you, I'll bear that in mind. The recipe I checked for green pesto did have cheese.

Cole slaw, twisted ...

[pickledginger.livejournal.com]

Ran across a mention recently of a wasabi cole slaw, and was intrigued.

In the article I read, it was made with a prefab wasabi mayonaise - but I'm sure the same results could easily be achieved by stirring a bit of wasabi into the mayo before adding it to the slaw. The magazine was touting it as a side-dish to go with grilled fish.

Caboges and Mery-Bonys

[pickledginger.livejournal.com]

From: Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books* (1430-1450), Thomas Austin Ed., Early English Text Society, Oxford University Press, 1964.

Take fayre caboges, an cutte hem, an pike hem clene and clene washe hem, an parboyle hem in fayre water, an thanne presse hem on a fayre bord; an than choppe hem, and caste hem in a fayre pot with goode fresshe broth, an wyth mery-bonys, and let it boyle: thanne grate fayre brede and caste ther-to, an caste ther-to Safron an salt; or ellys take gode grwel y-mad of freys flesshe, y-draw thorw a straynour, and caste ther-to. An whan thou seruyst yt inne, knocke owt the marw of the bonys, an ley the marwe ij gobettys or iij in a dysshe, as the semyth best, and serue forth.

1 medium head cabbage
4 c beef broth
4 lb marrow bones
pinch of saffron
1 T salt
breadcrumbs

Wash cabbage. Cut it in fourths. Parboil it (i.e. dump into boiling water, leave there a few minutes). Drain. Chop. Squeeze out water. Put it in a pot with beef broth and marrow bones. Simmer until soft, stirring often enough to keep it from sticking (about 20 minutes). Add saffron, salt, enough bread crumbs to make it very thick. Simmer ten minutes more. Serve.

source: Cariadoc's Miscellany (http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/cariadoc/vegetables.html#7")

Re: Caboges and Mery-Bonys

[muninnhuginn]

Cooked that, or something very similar, a long while back (tho' probably cheating with the marrow bones). I don't check in the medieval cookery books as often as I ought. They do tend to have good ways of spicing up vegetables.

[pickledginger.livejournal.com]

The link I posted above has some yummy diner-tested redactions ... hope you find some of them worth trying!

And I'm curious about how you were cooking up cabbage the other night - with apples and raisins? Any spices? Boiled or steamed or fried?

[pickledginger.livejournal.com]

Ooops - never mind. Just reread your original posting, and it's there!

Corvid Cabbage?

[muninnhuginn]

I've always found that cabbage gets over cooked, leaving it with much smell and not much taste--or texture. I like to crunch! This method adds extra flavour and makes it easier to have crisper results (there's probably a good reason why, but I'm no food scientist, but getting water to come to the boil on an Aga-type stove often takes longer than with electric or gas hobs).

Anyway, the method: I slice the cabbage but leave it reasonably chunky. I peel, core and chop an apple, or half a really larger "cooker", and add it and a good handful of sultanas to a pan containing the cabbage. Then--and this probably is the crucial part--I make up an appropriate amount of stock from a stock cube (started with chicken, but now prefer a vegetable one; about a half pint for a half head of white cabbage)) and add it to the pan. I tend to have liquid to just below the level of the cabbage. So I start cooking with the water already boiling: cuts cooking time and reduces the likelihood of overcooked, soggy results.

The last couple of times I've chopped a teaspoonful--or more--of fresh ginger and thrown that in with the boiling water.

That's it. It's great served with mashed potato to soak up all the excess stock.

Re: Corvid Cabbage?

[pickledginger.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'll have to try it!

[pickledginger.livejournal.com]

I used to just shred cabbage sometimes (well, slice it thin - nature's done half the work), then steam it. Sometimes with caraway, sometimes with hot pepper flakes, sometimes with an egg or two poached on top.

[muninnhuginn]

Caraway seems like an immensely good idea. Will try that.

[headgardener.livejournal.com]

Steaming cabbage definitely better than boiling it. Or stir-fry it with sauce/spices and whatever other ingredients of your choice.

The-gardener likes cabbage, he eventually got around to mentioning to me, so we have grown it this year: crinkly saavoy, and exotically glamorous red cabbage. He is also a brussels sprout enthusiast. An easy boy to feed.

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

My Brussels sprouts for Christmas dinner were a great success - stir-fried with almonds. This would work well with white cabbage.

[muninnhuginn]

Hadn't thought of almonds. Will now go ahead and try it with the latest cabbage. Or the sprouts. Or both.

[muninnhuginn]

I tend to stir fry the spinach and other easier to reduce down "green leaves", usually using a recipe I used for pak choi (which has lots of ginger in it and garlic). Not having a wok, the tougher cabbages are a bit of a pain in either of the frying pans--they tend to be overfull and hard to stir--and I'm not quite sure how a wok would work with the Aga-type stove.

I love sprouts--all the non-felines in the household do. It's a real pleasure watching the green stuff disappear from Looby Loo's plate first--even spinach and sprouts. Some kids do like green veg.

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

Cabbage, chopped fine, makes an excellent base for any kind of salad. Currently in the fridge, a bowl of crisp salad made of

1/2 a small cabbage
1/2 a cucumber
1 1/2 tomatoes
1 red salad onion

I would have added beansprouts, too, but didn't have any.

Speaking of cabbage...

[pickledginger.livejournal.com]

A food_pornographer has just posted a recipe for a sweet-and-sour cabbage soup. (http://www.livejournal.com/community/food_porn/331462.html?#cutid1)

Re: Speaking of cabbage...

[muninnhuginn]

Yum! That's two votes for caraway!

And what a stylishly-written recipe.

[pickledginger.livejournal.com]

A certain magician has suggested stuffed cabbage leaves as another alternative.

[muninnhuginn]

The response to the stuffing of vegetables of various types has been a fairly resounding "get stuffed". This is a great shame.

[pickledginger.livejournal.com]

Hmmph!
Maybe another year.