~ My Grandma's Butter-Braised Cabbage & Carrots ~

Both of my grandmothers' kitchens were close to home -- dad's mom lived 4-5 miles from us, mom's mom lived 9-10.  We visited them both often, and, both of them every Sunday -- lunch at mom's mom's, dinner at dad's mom's.  Until I was age ten or eleven and invited to my girlfriend Cathy's house for Sunday dinner, I assumed everybody's house smelled like cabbage on a Sunday.  We Eastern Europeans cook "Sunday cabbage" like Italians cook "Sunday gravy".

Braised cabbage is buttery & melt-in-your mouth tender.

I like cabbage a lot, but I wouldn't say I'm "crazy for cabbage".  I grew up with people who knew how to properly cook cabbage.  I liked their cabbage.  I've met a lot of people who just don't get cabbage cookery in any form.  I don't like any form of their cabbage.  Properly-cooked cabbage should be buttery and melt-in-your mouth tender.  Properly-braised cabbage should be buttery, tender, and, taste like cabbage, enhanced simply, by the natural sugars in onions and carrots. In my opinion, braised cabbage is not enhanced by the flavor of bacon or smoked pork.  Simmer down.  I'm a cabbage purist.  I enjoy my braised cabbage served as a side to all sorts of pork products -- I just don't appreciate it tasting more like pork than the pork itself.  Period.

The best braised cabbage is pure, simple & unadulterated.

There are many types of cabbage:  green, red, Napa (also known as Chinese cabbage), Savoy, Bok Choy and Choy Sum.  For making basic, Eastern-European braised cabbage, the common, compact green cabbage is simply perfect.  It's the one I grew up eating, and, it's the one I use the most to this day.  It makes the best braised cabbage in the world.  

That said, 'The World's Best Braised Cabbage Recipe' did not come from my grandmothers and wishing won't make it so. By the time I got around to wanting to learn how to make it, they weren't there to show me. My recipe is adapted from Molly Stevens' book, All About Braising. I've combined my grandmothers' ingredients list with Molly's method.  The biggest difference:  my grandmother butter-braised (& used more carrots).  Molly uses EVOO.

A bit about green cabbage:  The most common of all cabbages, sometimes affectionately referred to as "the king of cabbages", has wide, pale green leaves with an almost rubbery texture when raw.  My mom taught me how to choose cabbage. The instructions went like this:

"Choose young, tender, medium-sized, pretty green heads that are firm, have no splits or tears, and, feel heavy for their size."

A bit about coring cabbage:  The hard, tough, core is what holds the cabbage leaves to the head.  When making braised cabbage, I like to remove a shallow portion of it before cutting the cabbage into wedges.  When making stuffed cabbage rolls, I remove a deeper portion of it, so the leaves separate easily.  Using a sharp paring knife, cut around the core to a depth of about one inch.  

1  2-2 1/2-pound head green cabbage, cored as directed above and  cut into six wedges

1  large yellow onion, about 8 ounces, 1/2"-3/4" chopped

2 large carrots, peeled and sliced at a 30 degree angle into 1/4"-thick pieces, 8 ounces

6  tablespoons salted butter 

1/4  cup chicken or vegetable stock (grandma used water)

freshly-ground sea salt and peppercorn blend

no-stick cooking spray, for preparing casserole

~ Step 1.  Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

~ Step 2.  Prep and place cabbage, onion and carrots, in that order, in a 13" x 9" x 2" casserole that has been sprayed with no-stick spray.

~ Step 3.  In a 1-cup measuring container, in the microwave, melt the butter into the chicken or vegetable stock.

~ Step 4.  Season with sea salt and peppercorn blend.  I use 40 grinds salt and 60 grinds pepper which equates roughly to 3/4 teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon pepper.

~ Step 5.  Cover casserole with aluminum foil and braise on center rack of preheated oven until vegetables are tender and cabbage is turning golden on top, 2 hours.

Note:  Because oven temperatures vary, and, because cabbage varies in density from head to head, I recommend checking the veggies after 1 1/2 hours.  If they are fork tender and to your liking, stop there.

Portion & serve steaming hot w/smoked ham, roasted pork or poached chicken breast.

Heavenly -- and just as buttery as Baba used to make:

My Grandma's Butter-Braised Cabbage & Carrots :  Recipe yields 6 servings.

Special Equipment List:  cutting board; paring knife; chef's knife; vegetable peeler; 1-cup measuring container; aluminum foil

Cook's Note:  My grandmothers made braised cabbage often, but my mother did not. Whenever she bought cabbage, we knew what she was making for dinner -- and we didn't need to be called to the dinner table twice.  My recipe for ~ My Mom's Sublime Stuffed Cabbage Rolls (Holubki) ~ can be found in Categories 3, 12, 17, 19 or 22. Trust me when I tell you, this very well might be the world's best stuffed cabbage recipe.

"We are all in this food world together." ~ Melanie Preschutti

(Recipe, Commentary and Photos courtesy of Melanie Preschutt/Copyright 2015) 

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Comments

[semper ball]

Add some potatoes!

[KitchenEncounters]

Gabriella -- Thanks for the nice comment and feedback. What a great choice to serve it with a pork roast and mashed potatoes. Sounds luscious!

[Gabriella]

This was so delicious!! Made it exactly as written and we all loved it with roast pork and mashed potatoes. The cabbage with carrots was the big hit of the evening so much so that it has been requested again 2 weeks later! Excellent taste and texture! Will make this often!

[KitchenEncounters]

Carrie -- I inserted the link (again) in the Cook's Note at the end of the post. There was a transition with Typepad a while back and some of the links on older posts stopped working. I thank-you for calling this one to my attention. If you find others, do not hesitate to do the same. I want my blog to be as user friendly as possible.

[Carrie]

You reference where to find your mother’s recipe for Stuffed Cabbage Rolls, but I can’t find it even when I do a search. Please send me the link or tell me which category it’s under. Thank you