Oh cabbage! How I love you so. So cheap, so tasty, so nutritious. When people think you are stinky, it's just because they aren't cooking you right. When cooked quickly, you are one of the tastiest damn things out there.
Here's something to make with cabbage, courtesy of my brain. We had it for the second time for dinner last night, and it was awesome.
-Cabbage and White Bean Picatta-
ingredientsAbout 1/2 a cabbage,cored and shredded up fairly fine. I use a big knife for this, personally, but I suspect you could use a food processor.
3 cloves of garlic. You could use less if you want, but I love garlic. I may add even more garlic the next time I make this. But 3 cloves is good. Oh, and you'll want to mince them or grate them or press them. I put mine through the garlic press. The point is, make it into kind of a loose mush.
Olive oil. Just a little. A few tablespoons at most.
Cannellini beans. I used a 15oz can, but you could also use about 2 cups of beans you cooked up yourself from dried.
Butter! 2 tablespoons should do it!
Capers! I can't say I really measure these, but 1-3 tablespoons? I tend to err on the side of more capers, because I am in favor of capers.
Juice of one or two lemons. I used two last night, but generally I would use one. The lemons I had around last night were
tiny.
InstructionsStart heating up a wok or a big skillet. Once it's nice and hot, add the olive oil. While that's heating up, start melting some butter in a tiny skillet or saucepan.
Okay. So now you add the shredded cabbage to the wok/big skillet, and toss it around (carefully, using two spoons, so that the cabbage doesn't go all over the stove) to get the cabbage coated with oil. Then let it sit for a minute or two at high heat. You want it to start to brown in the places it's touch the pan. That means it's caramelizing, and that in turn means it will taste awesome.
The butter in your little pan should be melty by now, so stir it gently until it's a nutty brown, and then turn off the heat. If it's an electric stove, remove it from heat so that it stops browning. Set it aside. We'll come back to it later.
Back to your cabbage. Add the garlic to it, and toss that together. Then let it cook another minute or so. It should be starting to get a bit limp at this point. Now you add the beans, toss it together again, turn the heat down to medium, and let it cook together nicely while you finish the sauce.
Okay. We're back to the butter now. It should have sat for at least two minutes off heat at this point. You don't want to add cool liquids to hot butter, generally, as it generates an oil spitty mess. But it should be cool enough at this point. So add your capers and your lemon juice, and put the pan back over heat. Let it come to the slightest boil and reduce just a little. Stir it all around, and turn off the heat again.
And you're done! Combine the contents of the two pans in your serving dish, make sure they're mixed up nicely, and put that sucker on the table!
Serves anywhere from 2-6 depending on how hungry you are and how much other stuff you're serving. We had this with nothing else, just the two of us, for dinner last night, and finished the whole thing. But if there's only one of you try it anyway. The leftovers should heat up just fine.
