cabbage in coconut

This works really well with purple sprouting broccoli, or spring greens, and is delicious.  I’d never actually made it with cabbage before, but nothing ventured, etc.

It was a small hispi cabbage, and I cored out all the thick stem, and shredded it up.  Blanched it in boiling water for a couple of minutes, then put it in a colander to drain off.

Then chop some garlic, and a dried red chilli, and fry them in groundnut oil for a couple of minutes.  Tip in a tin of coconut milk, and cook it down for about 10 minutes, so it’s thick and gloopy.  Then add the cabbage, and cook for another five minutes or so.  Add a few drops of sesame oil, and the juice of half a lemon, at the end.  Serve with basmati - at least, we did!

Powered by Bookmarkify™

cabbage and pancetta risotto

As you may recall, we have a bit of a cabbage glut, so I’ve been desperately trying to use them up.  This is what I did on Friday night, and it worked rather well!

Sliced a red onion and sautéd it in some olive oil with a packet of pancetta cubes.  While that was cooking, I made up a pint of chicken stock (using a cube - but it was organic, at least).  Weighed out 5 oz of Arborio rice.  Thinly sliced about 1/3 of a green cabbage.

Added the rice to the onion mix and turned it around till it was coated.  Splashed in some stock, stirred until it was absorbed.  Carried on in this vein until half the stock was gone, then added the cabbage, and some seasoning.  Continued with stock adding and stirring.  Once all the liquor was absorbed, tested for crunchiness and seasoning.  Added some parmesan shavings.

Nice.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

cabbage, bacon and mozzarella

We seem to have a cabbage glut - two of them in the fridge at the start of the week, which is bad planning. I mandolined half of one on Monday for this week’s soup, so only one and a half to go …

There were a few bits (I couldn’t call them rashers, really) of streaky smoked bacon in the fridge, so they were derinded and chopped up, and sautéd in olive oil with some onion.

Bunged some pasta on to boil, thinly sliced the half cabbage left from Monday, and added it to the onion/bacon mix. Stirred it around to coat in oil, added black pepper and about a tablespoon of water, and put a lid on it for about 10 minutes.

Drained the pasta, added it to the cabbage pan and dolloped in a chopped up mozzarella.

Served it in bowls - quick, easy, tasty.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

corned beef hash

Having tackled some of the sprout overload on Wednesday night, we looked at the 1.5 cabbages in the fridge yesterday and thought “we really should eat some of that”.

So - cut up a couple of biggish spuds into smallish chunks, and put them in the bottom half of the steamer to boil.  Shredded not very much of a cabbage - it goes a long way, does cabbage, and put it on to steam for the last six minutes of the potato boiling.

Chopped an onion, and set it to fry in some oil - unaccountably, we have run out of dripping, both in the dripping bowl, and in a packet.  Shockingly poor housekeeping there.

Diced the contents of a small can of corned beef, and added it to the cooking onion.  Stirred these around until both onion and corned beef were soft.

Drained the veg, and added the potato - mashed it gently down into the pan with a masher so everything started to meld together, then added the cabbage and stirred everything round.  Started patting the mixture down so it would brown, which it did quite helpfully.

I ate mine with lashings of HP Sauce.  Pete had Lea and Perrins, but he’s peculiar.

Haven’t had this for ages, and had forgotten what nice comfort food it is.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

cabbage and chicken risotto

using up: cabbage, the very last of last week’s roast chicken.

Now, I really didn’t expect this to work at all, but it was really nice, and will be added to my repertoire of cabbage recipes; we get a lot of cabbages in the veg box, so a new dish is quite exciting!  I think it would work with pancetta instead of chicken, and any other cabbage, although denser ones would need to be steamed first.

My base for risotto for two is 5 oz of arborio rice, and 1 pint of liquid - this can be stock, lemon juice, wine, vermouth, whatever, or any permutation thereof.  I once tried coconut milk, and it worked really well.  People say you should keep the stock bubbling, but I’m afraid I don’t bother.

Quartered an onion, then cut it into rings.  Sauteéd it in some olive oil and butter until soft.  Prepared a pint of vegetable stock using Marigold bouillon powder and boiling wter.  Put 5 oz of risotto rice into the pan and stirred it about to coat it in the buttery oily mix.

Started adding the stock a bit at a time, and kept stirring until the rice absorbs the liquid, then added some more. Kept on doing this.  When about half the stock was gone, added about a quarter of a savoy cabbage, sliced very finely into ribbons, and stirred that in.  Added some sea salt and freshly ground cabbage.  Kept adding stock.  When about a quarter of it left, added some shredded cooked chicken.  Kept adding stock.

I suppose it takes about 20 minutes, although I’ve never timed it.  At the end of the process the rice should be al dente.  We finished it off with some parmesan shavings - sounds grand, but I just take them off with the potato peeler :)

Powered by Bookmarkify™

cabbage with mozzarella and pancetta

This is one of our favourite Things To Do With Cabbage - it’s incredibly quick to make, and very nice to eat.

Shred half a cabbage - doesn’t matter what sort; this works with savoy, with hispi, with white, with green. Chop an onion, and a couple of cloves of garlic if you like - sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t.

I also used some cubed pancetta on this occasion, but it’s not essential either - it’s just as nice without.

Sauté the onion, and the optional garlic, in some olive oil until it’s soft - use a shallow pan with a lid - then add the cabbage, and keep stirring until it has started to soften.  Give it a good sprinkling of black pepper, then put a lid on it and cook for, oh, ten minutes.  Or more if you like your cabbage more soggy, or indeed less if you like it crunchier.  Keep an eye on it - depending on the cabbage you might need to add a little water.  Or I’ve added white wine, or vermouth.

While this is going on cook some pasta - tagliatelle works well.  Drain it, rinse it, add it to the pan, and hurl in one mozzarella cut into cubes.  Stir this all around until the cheese starts to melt, then decant into bowls and scoff.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

indian spiced cabbage

Powered by Bookmarkify™