Crispy caramelised cabbage

Boring vegetables must work harder

Nations that historically have not suffered from plenitude of interesting vegetables have learnt to be inventive with what they have. Aubergines and red peppers are sexy enough to be simply thrown onto hot grill and charred a little, then soused with olive oil. Where's the creativity with that?

Cabbage, parsnips, squash and their relations have to work much harder to earn culinary regard. Barbecued parsnips? Erm - no, and anyway it's far too cold and wet for a barbecue. Roasted parsnip however, with burnt stickiness of honey, is a delight. Likewise cabbage: it needs an inventive recipe.

The curse of being cabbage

Cabbage! how sexy does it sound? Not sexy at all, in fact I’d say thoroughly un-sexy. Even red cabbage or spring cabbage or savoy – they all suffer from the ‘cabbage’ moniker.

Being a cabbage is much worse than being an onion and cabbage soup is the one redeeming dish; still, only appealing to the diet brigade. How often have you encountered cabbage as a side in seven course tasting menus? Even if, it was disguised as ‘hispi’, ‘shredded greens’ or ‘pickles’.

I like to try and redeem cabbage anyway: my spring cabbage salad is an attempt to promote the veg suggesting it to the fermentation zealots. It’s wholesome, it tastes good raw, it has as much Vitamin C as oranges; it had been known to prevent scurvy in the past among the less privileged.

Can cabbage turn crisp?

‘Crispy’ and ‘caramelised’ are magic words for food bloggers, especially when Google search is concerned. Anything crispy or caramelised (or both) guarantees you hits and interest, perhaps unless it’s referring to tartare steaks*.

Crispy and caramelised will hopefully work its magic with cabbage: the poor vegetable sure needs rescue being stuck in the lower-class category. And above all, cooked cabbage can be unbelievably delicious.

Cook it down; it will caramelise over higher heat than you think. I know; there’s not much Vitamin C left in it after it’s been cooking for half an hour but it is still full of fibre and more importantly full of flavour. It is one of the best things to do to cabbage: those Swedes definitely know their way about the vegetable.

Swedish style cabbage

That's where I lifted this method of cooking cabbage: Swedish kalpudding is a meatloaf made from beef mince mixed with cooked cabbage, with more cabbage baked on top. I simply thought that way of preparing cabbage was so good it was a waste to save it solely for meatloaves.

*you might be surprised how fantastically well crispy capers and caramelised shallots will go with a steak tartare.