Recipes?

[resonant]

I'm not doing CSA posts this year because, basically, I'm traveling so much that my brains are scrambled. But I have two enormous cabbages and I don't know what to do with them.

I already have two excellent cabbage soups (one peasanty with carrots and potatoes, one smooth and classy with leeks and sour cream) and a Cook's Illustrated buttermilk coleslaw recipe that looks intriguing.

I quite like braised cabbage as a side dish to meat -- except that we're hardly eating meat because we've got so many vegetables.

So what else can a person do with cabbage?

Comments

[misspamela]

Pickled cabbage?

[resonant]

I've never had that! Will look for recipes.

[twistedchick]

Stir fry with chicken.

Grated thinly with sweet pepper and Italian dressing for impromptu coleslaw.

[resonant]

I do a lot of stir-fry, but somehow I never think of cabbage!

[myalexandria]

I would head to smittenkitchen.com and search for "slaw."

Also, http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2010/06/chicken_mango_cole_slaw_recipe.html

[libitina]

I made her mango slaw yesterday, and it was perfect for the heat here. :)

[resonant]

I'll bet that's tasty, but I'm funny about fruit, and mango is one of the many fruits I'm funny about.

I will check out the slaws, though.

[myalexandria]

I would head for smittenkichen.com and search for "slaw."

Also: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2010/06/chicken_mango_cole_slaw_recipe.html

[sage]

2 ideas:

stir fry sliced cabbage with mixed veggies, garlic, and grated ginger in sesame or peanut oil. (add separately cooked meat or tofu if you like.) serve with rice.

use raw sliced cabbage in fish tacos with halibut, flounder, or any white fish. grated carrot and a mango-cilantro salsa go very well. you can use either flour or corn tortillas, but if corn, you'll want them toasted on a griddle and served warm.

I've seen recipes for mayo-free cole slaw made with oil and apple cider vinegar. (of course, my mother's recipe goes with a full cup of mayo, but these days I avoid the stuff.)

[resonant]

The buttermilk slaw recipe I found in Cook's only uses 2 tablespoons of mayo; the rest is buttermilk. It sounded good to me precisely because it would be lighter than regular coleslaw, which never quite seems to qualify as a vegetable to me because it's so heavy.

[james]

In addition to stir fries, you can always chop/slice some up and add them raw to salads.

[resonant]

I've seen that done with purple cabbage, but not with green. But it stands to reason.

[schemingreader]

There are so many fantastic slaw recipes that I feel silly saying this, but how about cabbage noodles? I think it's onions, butter, cabbage and noodles.

This is a good slaw.

Plain old boring green cabbage is unbeatable in Asian-style vegetable stir-fry, you know, with a little soy sauce, sesame oil and ginger or garlic. I have Eileen Yin-Fei Lo's vegetable cookbook and she does great things with cabbage.

[resonant]

Oh, that's entirely different from what i expected when I saw the word 'slaw.' I'll have to try it!

[raine]

Cabbage rollups -- cook ground meat or chicken pieces in your favorite terayaki sauce or taco sauce, then use the cabbage leaves as taco shells to hold the meat. (Could do this with tofu, likely, but you'd probably want a firm tofu.) Or do the traditional Polish recipe for golabki; there's many on the 'net to try.

Colcannon is one of my favorite Irish dishes for what to do with a lot of cabbage; http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/colcannon-irish-potato-salad-recipe/index.html is one by Jason Priestley (yes, that one.)

Have fun!

[fullygoldy]

I've never put kale in colcannon, but I've frequently cooked up extra cabbage and onions for colcannon and stuck them in the freezer for later. Just thaw and add to everyday mash whenever the mood strikes :)

Also, there's a recipe called "3 day slaw" in Screen Doors and Sweet Tea that is billed as a perfect dish to make for a long weekend of houseguests, and it's true - I just got back from the family reunion where I made this, and everyone loved it, even 3 days later.

[resonant]

I saw a Middle Eastern variant on the cabbage roll-ups, too, with a filling with ground chickpeas in it. But it sounded like a lot of trouble.

Jane Brody has something she calls colcannon casserole -- basically cabbage, mashed potatoes thinned with a bit of milk, and cheddar cheese. I love it, but the rest of the fmaily is meh about it.

[wychwood]

Bubble-and-squeak! Which is mashed potato with cheese mixed in, add fried onion and steamed cabbage, shape into cakes and fry on both sides until crunchy, or at least squeaking (hence the name). Delicious.

[resonant]

Oh, yum. You couldn't go wrong with those ingredients.

[minxy]

I love wedges of cabbage roasted with apples, sausage, sweet onion wedges and whatever other vegetables need cooking. The outer leaves get crispy! If you can stand to have the oven on where you are, it's a really low-effort way to make a large amount of delicious foods.

[resonant]

That sounds glorious. Right now it's too hot for oven cooking (plus the lighter for the gas oven is broken) but I'll definitely keep it in mind!

[minxy]

Yeah, I'm in New York, so it's been all salads and iced tea for me lately. But now I have two heads of cabbage to deal with!

I've been lamenting the fact that I don't have a grill--I bet this would work on a grill.

[moireach.livejournal.com]

You can sautee it with onions, garlic, and ground turkey, mix in some of that fancy boxed roasted red pepper soup (Pacific Farms? Imagine?), and serve over rice or couscous or the like.

[resonant]

Huh. That sounds really interesting. I hate red peppers, though ...

[moireach.livejournal.com]

Or with a really good tomato soup! (I think the one I'm thinking of is tomato & red pepper, fwiw.)

Cheater's Kimchi

[trcunning]

Take shredded cabbage, carrot, apple and finely chopped broccoli.
Simmer with finely chopped garlic and lemon peel, rice wine vinegar, nampla and srihracha until tender.
Finish with sesame oil and thinly sliced green onion.
Serve over steamed rice. (Great with steamed fish.)

Re: Cheater's Kimchi

[resonant]

Apple? Really? Huh.

Re: Cheater's Kimchi

[trcunning]

It sweetens it a bit without having to add straight sugar.

[jain]

Cabbage noodles: Slice a cabbage. Heat 3 or 4 Tbsp. olive oil in a large pot on medium high, then add the cabbage and cook, stirring frequently. When it's about halfway done, add a couple Tbsp. sugar. Cook until the cabbage is soft and brown. Salt and pepper to taste.

Mix with cooked egg noodles and enjoy. Some people like to put a dollop of sour cream on top, but it's good plain, too.

[resonant]

I had a strange sour cream experience this week. Kroger had three kinds of sour cream in the fridge: regular, fat-free, and "all-natural."

If one of them hadn't been labeled "all-natural," I wouldn't have checked the ingredients on any of them. But the all-natural one had cream, milk, and enzymes, while the regular one had about sixteen ingredients!

[pandarus]

Mmmm seconding Bubble And Squeak! Mmmm!

Alternatively, my mum always does a yummy red cabbage thing at Christmas, but I can't see why it wouldn't be yummy with green cabbage - Sliced up cabbage cooked together with chopped onion and grated or sliced apple.

[resonant]

Does she braise them or roast them or what? Cabbage, onion, and apple sound great together. (Even better with sausage, as someone suggested above.)

[sliad89]

Haluski! You cut up a head of cabbage in to bite-ish sized pieces, combine with sliced potatoes and onions in a large skillet with some oil (enough to keep things from sticking but you aren't frying anything), and cook on medium until the potatoes are soft. I put my cabbage in only for the last 10min or so because I like to keep it crispy. You then stir in some egg noodles (I use one medium sized package), salt and pepper, and enough butter to keep the noodles from clumping. Amazing and very flavorful. You can use kelbasi or another sausage in this, if you wish. Put it in with the potatoes/onions and cut back on the oil.

[resonant]

Huh -- this is a new concept to me. The egg noodles are raw or cooked?

[stultiloquentia]

BBQ it! (I've done this. It works.)

[resonant]

That is definitely something I couldn't have made up myself!

[stultiloquentia]

Bwahaha! Very diplomatic answer. *g*

[tevere]

Okonomiyaki, a savoury Japanese pancake made with egg and flour and stuffed with cabbage, other vegetables and/or shrimp or meat. Unfortunately I've yet to find the perfect recipe for this, so I can't provide a foolproof link. But they're delicious!

Also, +1 to the colcannon and pickled cabbage; these were my two what-to-do-with-CSA-cabbage staples.

[resonant]

The pancake sounds great! Not unlike an eggroll, but with a different delivery system.

Any recipe recs for pickled cabbage? And with what do you eat it?

[tevere]

Late comment is late, sorry!

Hm, pickled cabbage. I find it goes with many things as a condiment: in burgers, as a sort of coleslaw-type side, etc. Actually, to be honest, I eat it out of the jar with a fork. I make it according to an El Salvadorean (allegedly?) recipe, like this:

Curtido (pickled cabbage)
1 cup cabbage, chopped
1 medium carrot, grated
1 medium onion, halved and finely sliced
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp sea salt
1/3 cup white wine vinegar
1/3 cup water

Sterilise a large jar. Place cabbage, carrot and onion in a colander and pour boiling water over them. Place the vegetables in the jar with the oregano, salt, vinegar and water and mix well. Seal tightly and store in the fridge for 1 week.

Easy!

My recipe book says to serve it with something called pupusas, which are apparently a sort of cheese-filled corn-based tortilla. Unfortunately, I've never gotten this to work-- masa harina isn't easily found around here (or in East Timor!), and polenta/regular cornmeal Does Not Work. But I think the combination of cheese, spring onions, a tortilla and some pickled cabbage would be pretty darn fine.

[raveninthewind]

I like lots of cabbage in my yakisoba (about three times as much as restaurants put in), along with sliced onion and carrots.

Cabbage and diced potatoes in equal amounts, fried up with some onion, were standard in the winter when I was growing up.

My favorite is probably colcannon, although it's not vegetarian (has bacon) and won't up a lot of the cabbage.

[resonant]

Those all sound lovely, and now I want some nice cool crisp weather and some cabbage-potato-onion fry!

[castiron]

My favorite cabbage recipe: Fry up some ground sausage in a large lidded pan, add the chopped up cabbage and a large glug of apple cider vinegar, cover, and let cook until the cabbage is softened.

(Our usual proportions are about a pound of sausage and a whole small cabbage or half a large cabbage; it's a little heavy on the meat, but the farm sausage doesn't come any smaller and the pan won't hold any more cabbage.)

[caseylane]

Everyone is posting such wonderful recipies. I think that's on of the things I'll miss about your "No CSA" policy. Hope things settle down for you.

if you still have that cabbage...

[name_les]

Cube a package of salt pork (I've only been able to find vacuum packages which are a fairly standard size) and brown it with 1 very large or 2 medium sliced onion(s) in a large pot. Optional: I rinse the salt pork first to make it less salty and cut off the skin - eww!.

Next throw in sliced cabbage. Cook, stirring when needed, until the cabbage is in the state of tenderness that you prefer. I cook it until it is this side of mush. This dish is unattractive, but everyone complained at its absence the 1 holiday I didn't cook it.

one more, if you can stand it

[eotu]

I watched my Moroccan brother-in-law make this salad when we visited Israel in 1998. He did not use a recipe. Everything is, of course, subject to your taste. Serves 4 generously.

1/2 large head of cabbage, finely shredded, or 16 oz. bag preshredded cole slaw mix
1 to 3 cloves fresh garlic, to taste, finely chopped
juice of 1/2 lemon -- I squeeze the lemon half over the cabbage and garlic once they're in the bowl, then pick out what seeds I can.
1/4 to 1/2 tsp salt, to taste. I like to use kosher salt
1 to 3 generous dollops mayonnaise, to taste

Mix everything together thoroughly. Let sit covered at room temperature for about 1/2 hour so that the cabbage softens just a little. If it is going to sit longer, put it (covered) in the refrigerator. This salad is best eaten the same day.