If you don’t like cabbage, you’ve been cooking it all wrong. I promise. The first
thing that comes to mind for people in the US when you say “cabbage” is a boiled
dinner. Look, if I boiled you some onions, I don’t think you’d like that either.
But I probably don’t need to explain that caramelized onions are simply divine. The
same with cabbage. There are 3 things that make cabbage absolutely addictive: lots of
oil, salt, browning, and time. So if you are the quick and easy low-fat cooking type of
person, please leave this video right now. Because what we are about to do is illegal
in some states.
I don’t wash my cabbage because water has a tendency to get trapped between the leaves
which slows down the browning. I just remove a few outer leaves and discard them (they
tend to be a tad dried up anyway. If you see any blemishes, trim them off. Trim the root
to create a flat surface. This will prevent the cabbage from rolling around as you cut
it in half. Wow. This is a tough one.
There are many ways to shred cabbage. If you have a food processor with a slicing attachment,
you could use that. But ideally, you’d use a knife so that you get the exact thickness
that you want. I want strips that are about 2 inches long and ¼ inch wide. Here are two
ideas for how to get there. You can make incisions that go from the root area to the top of the
cabbage, but keep it attached at the root like you would for dicing an onion and them
slice crosswise.
In case you are wondering what size cabbage to buy, I suggest you don’t go bigger than
7 inches (or 18 cm) in diameter. Any bigger than that, and you might have a hard time
finding a pan big enough for it.
When you get to the root area, tilt the caggae on the other side and work your way around
the root. The root is too tough and you don’t want to get it into your finished dish. As
you keep shredding you might lose a few leaves here and there. It’s safest to set them
aside and chop them separately since they tend to slip and slide on top of your cabbage.
Another option is to cut the sides of the cabbage off and basically do the same thing
I just showed you but on much smaller pieces which could be a lot more comfortable. Then
cut the middle in half and slice each half separately. Same deal, work your way around
the root and discard it.
Get the biggest, deepest, stainless steel skillet you have in your kitchen. If possible,
choose one with straight sides to give you as much surface area for browning as possible.
Mine is 12 inches in diameter and about 3 inches deep. Crowding the pan is good for
this dish, but you still want to be able to stir it easily without everything spilling
from the pan.
Set the pan over high heat and add a quarter cup of olive oil. When the oil starts to shimmer,
throw in a few cabbage pieces to see if they’ll sizzle. When you can clearly hear them, throw
in all of the cabbage and a few pinches of salt. Don’t go crazy with salt since the
cabbage will shrink a lot as it cooks. Stir to integrate the salt. Cover. And leave it
alone until the bottom starts to brown. After the first 3 minutes, check very frequently.
How long it takes will depend on your skillet and your stove, so there is no way for me
to give you timing. When you check, don’t stir or you’ll sabotage your browning efforts.
Just check a spot of the skillet that usually browns first. That really depends on your
burner, but for me it’s the outside.
Once you get browning, then you stir. Cover and repeat the browning and stirring process
about 3 more times.
But keep in mind that each time, browning will happen faster and faster. So you should
gradually drop the heat and check up on your cabbage more frequently.
If the bottom of the pan ever feels dry, add more oil. If you want your cabbage to look
like this instead of burnt, don’t skimp on oil.
After you make this dish once, you’ll have a good gut feel for how long browning takes
with your equipment and won’t have to hover over the pan nearly as much.
On this last stir, I felt the skillet was getting dry, so I added more fat. Olive oil
would work, but butter would be even tastier. The reason that I held off with butter until
now is so that it doesn’t burn. At this point I am on moderate heat, so butter should
be fine. Ok, our butter is melted, so let’s cover the pan for a few minutes and wait for
browning.
Once you’ve built up a lot of browning, on the cabbage, you’ll have a lot of wonderful
brown bits in the bottom of your pan (assuming you are using a stainless steel pan) and it’s
time to move onto stage 2, which is deglazing the pan.
Drop the heat to pretty low and add ¼ cup of dry white wine or stock or even water to
the pan and stir it with a flat spoon to scrape up the brown bits. Then cook the cabbage uncovered
for about 10 to 15 minutes stirring every couple of minutes. At this point you want
very gentle sizzling so adjust the heat appropriately.
When it starts to look like this, you are done. So take it off the heat and adjust the
seasoning. As always you’ll need acidity. I’ll use a couple of teaspoons of pomegranate
molasses, but you can replace it with balsamic vinegar. Just be aware that you’ll probably
need less of it because vinegar is more sour. Taste and then correct for salt. Mine needed
a pinch. This cabbage can be eaten right away or refrigerated for up to a week and rewarmed.
This is browning that goes to the heart and sole of a vegetable. It’s really a transformative
experience. What’s so cool about cabbage is that it’s more savory and umami loaded
than caramelized onions, which makes sense since cabbage has more glutamates than onions.
And while the onions are used more as a condiment. This is an incredible side dish topped with
sourcream or a great add-on to any carbs -- lentils, beans, potatoes, pasta, grains. But I have
a soft spot for using this cabbage as a filling for pirozhki. Pirozhki is the Russian word
for little pies. Not to be confused with Polish pierogi, which is pasta. And yes, this cabbage
would be incredible in that too. I had a number of viewers asking for a pirozhki video and
it’s finally coming next week. So if you aren’t subscribed to my channel yet, this
could be a very good reason to hit that red button.
Here are more cooking tutorials for you to check out and if you are ever in the Boston
area, maybe I’ll see you in one of my classes.