It has taken all of my childhood and some of my adult years, but I have been enjoying the complex fresh/bitter flavors of some of the more... challenging vegetables for the last several years. One of those happens to be cabbage. It's a beautiful vegetable in the ground, and if you're about my age, you probably will think of Cabbage Patch Dolls with the following photo, as well:
Mature cabbages, ready for eating!
It's my pleasure to be doing some fun things with cabbage this year, now that we've finally figured out how to grow it (starting it WAY earlier than we thought, and being very, very patient). I made some great kraut last month, but I also made a cabbage soup. French onion is one of my favorite foods, and I couldn't get a similar version with cabbage out of my head. It turns out that I was right - cabbage soup has a lovely flavor, and is quite similar, though quicker and not as pretty, to French onion.
Our first Oliview cabbage! It's not as dense as store cabbages, but is infinately fresher and more satisfying!
I had a medium-small head of cabbage that I chopped up similar to how you might for kraut. I chopped up some onions, too, and LOTS of garlic, sautéed those, and added in the cabbage.
After seeing it soften (though not brown), I added in about 3 cups of chicken broth (from our own chickens, of course!), some thyme, oregano, and tarragon, to play up the French flavors. After boiling for about 15 minutes, I went at it with the immersion blender... which promptly failed me. I did a few rounds in the conventional blender, but it ended up chunkier than I'd planned. This was still pretty good, and a great way to eat a lot of cabbage! I topped it with Gruyere cheese and some of our amazing garlic scape pesto and had myself a fabulous veggie-heavy dinner.
Yay for a mature palate!
- Elizabeth