Roasted savoy cabbage

Savoy cabbage - my childhood throwback

I didn’t like many vegetables when I was a kid. My mother wasn’t a fantastic cook to put it mildly, and my father supported the ‘don’t have what you like, like what you have’ parenting style. So my mealtimes were a bit of a misery time.

I was a very obedient child so even though carrots frightened me, lettuce made me retch and broccoli gave me nightmares, I’d chew and swallow my hateful sides with my dinners like a good girl.

Grated carrot salad – bleurgh, I'm still not keen on grated carrot. Spinach was acceptable only when mushed into mashed potatoes. Cauliflower used to be boiled until almost dissolved so when I first encountered roasted cauliflower I thought it was an entirely different vegetable.

But savoy cabbage marked the day with a white stone. It was rather vile to my present mind: overcooked, under-seasoned and limp and grey. But it was the only vegetable I liked and that’s to say a lot.

The savoy would arrive in quarters, like in my recipe here, but it had been plainly braised on the hob instead of infused with herbs in the oven. The herbs there were none to infuse it. There was just limp garlic clinging to the leaves and far too little salt and pepper.

I simply adored the dish.

This recipe takes me back but it’s really good, I say with relief. Frankly, cooking better than my mum did isn’t a difficult trick (no offence, Mum – you always said it yourself!). So savoy cabbage is still one of my favourite vegetables only I can cook it so much better.

Can you eat savoy cabbage raw?

It looks posher and more refined than its red, green or white aka hammerhead cousins. It’s vibrant green in colour and interestingly bubbly in texture. It spreads its outer leaves expansively and looks appetising enough to eat raw.

That would be a mistake though: appearances deceive and savoy cabbage is exceptionally tough and fibrous raw. It needs quite a bit of cooking, braising, roasting – or shredding finely and stir frying energetically with lots of heat.

It is lovely stuffed with meat or rice, an East European take on dolmados, Greek stuffed vine leaves. The savoy texture is actually so close to vine leaves that I wonder who copied who.

How to cook savoy cabbage?

I like the combination of charring it until nearly burnt and then sousing it with stock and braising in the oven.

Cut into wedges, quarters or eights depending on the size of the head, it is seared on all sides in an ovenproof frying pan with only a little oil.

The oven braising stage, with stock and butter, needs covering with a lid. No ovenproof pan with a matching lid? Transferring the cabbage from a frying pan to a lidded casserole is pointless faff so in the worst case you can cover your pan with a baking tray.

And then the last stage: the wonderful topping of breadcrumbs, herbs and Parmesan (which is so good I call them magic breadcrumbs and sprinkle over veg liberally and often) lands on the cabbage wedges and bakes there for a few final minutes.

It is a side dish but it’s really good enough to be a standalone centrepiece for supper or for a weekend lunch, with some crusty bread to mop us the juices.

More cabbage recipes

Unlike Savoy, spring green cabbage is delightful in a raw salad, like this crunchy cabbage salad.

And here is the other end of the spectrum: cabbage cooked so long it becomes crisp and caramelised.

Red cabbage is not just for Christmas. My method is quick and easy – stir frying, with festive spices, apples and raisins.

More vegetable side recipes

Celeriac gratin is a nice way of presenting this versatile root vegetable.

Brussels sprouts two ways – for sprout heads and tops which we often stupidly chuck into the bin.

Broccoli, but not as you know it: sesame roasted broccoli is so much more interesting than plain boiled or steamed florets!