The brassicas I planted early (soon after the onion beds had been cleared and it was cool enough to plant anything) – I think it was the end of August have grown really well; probably the best I’ve ever grown. They are squashed into the bed too so that everything touches everything else. We’ve eaten lots of superb broccoli and secondary stems are already growing and I can’t keep up with the pointy cabbages, they are splitting before I can get around to harvesting them, but it is the red cabbages that have looked so beautiful in the bed especially the one right on the corner of the bed (which is obviously benefitting from more light than the others).
I decided that it would be ideal for the lunch party last Sunday (see here for the adventures of the day). One of my friends is following a special diet to help relieve pain so she can’t eat any meat at the moment; but the day was forecast as rain and cold so some meat was the order of the day. I made fresh pappardelle and another friend brought Hare sauce to go with it. The Secondo was beef cooked in wine so I needed some good comfort food that didn’t contain meat for my friend Lucia. Slow-cooked red cabbage was my choice! Along with roasted Broccoli with Coriander and garlic (from Delia Smith’s Winter Collection)
The red cabbage recipe is a classic and the recipe I follow is from the ‘Cordon Bleu’ series of, I don’t like to think how, many years ago – but a really good recipe is always a good recipe.
The cabbage weighed in at a hefty 2 kg and 100 grams (ALL my metric weights) good job I’d taken off all the outside leaves before weighing it!
The colour of the leaves was so beautiful, like shot silk, luminescent an impossible sage green with red, the camera hasn’t captured it but you get the idea.
- Cut 1 kg cabbage into shreds and plunge into boiling water and cook for 1 minute. The cabbage turns an unlikely violet blue.
- Next chop 2 large onions I used red ones because that’s all I have left and soften in butter (or olive oil if cooking for Lucia).
- Peel, core and slice 2 apples and add to the onions and cook for a couple of minutes.
- Layer the cabbage, onion and apple in a large ovenproof casserole and season each layer with salt, pepper and a little vinegar and water (in theory you need 3 tablespoons of vinegar and 2 of water ) I just go my eye but being careful not to add much vinegar. At this stage the cabbage changes back to its more appetising red colour.
- Put in a low oven 170° C and cook very gently for 2 hours.
- Here the recipe says to add kneaded butter to thicken the juices, I never find this necessary (and for Lucia I couldn’t use butter anyway!).This is good served with braised meat, sausages or with cold turkey. Nice to have some ready-made in the freezer for when you don’t want to do any more cooking after Christmas day.
That is indeed a fabulous red cabbage which is my favorite…it looks so good here on the page and I can imagine the flavor. I have not grown cabbages here but to do so I woud have to cover them since the little white cabbage butterflies would be all over them leaving their little caterpillars by the hundreds to munch the cabbages to the ground.
Hi Donna, there are lots of cabbage white butterflies here too, even now it is not too cold for them. I find that earlier in the season the eggs and small caterpillars are eaten by wasps. Otherwise I just pick the caterpillars of and squash them. I don’t use any pesticides. Christina
The photos of your cabbage are beautiful – I remember my one successful cabbage and how beautiful it looked in the veggie bed, so I can imagine how glorious yours must be in reality. I love the sound of this recipe (the apples in it sound yumm). Thanks for sharing, I’m going to try it.
I hope you enjoy it, but I think it is a winter dish, so you may want to wait until autumn arrives with you. Christina
I confess I have never cooked red cabbage but it does sound good for my vegetarian daughter, thank you for the idea. The cabbage does look so good it makes you want to eat it!
Love red cabbage and the cut surface looks so beautiful. I have read that cabbage white butterfly only lay their eggs on the green ones, is this your experience?
Now you mention it, Pauline, I think you’re right, although maybe it only works if there are some green cabbages around too. As I mentioned below, wasps deal with most of the caterpillars. Christina
Beautiful cabbage and the recipe sounds delicious.
This reminds me of a recipe I used to make years ago – I think it was reputedly Polish in origin. Has your broccoli really only taken 2-3 months to develop spears?
Yes, with the warmth and all the rain we’ve had things grow very quickly. Christina
I would like to have been there for that meal! The cabbage recipe sounds delicious, and I am writing it down so I can try it.
I hope you enjoy it. Christina
Red cabbage is truly beautiful and your recipe sounds delicious. I’ve never tried roasting broccoli, I must look in to that! Goodness, I am so looking forward to being able to eat home grown broccoli again.
The broccoli recipe is really simple and delicious. Christina