Join us this Friday from 11 am to 3 pm for the Stanford Produce Stand! Come get your weekly supply of delicious, fresh, organic, and locally grown items. We are located in the front courtyard of Tresidder Memorial Union.
From the Stanford Community Farm and gardens: Cabbage, lettuce, parsley, beets, turnips, collards, and Red Russian and Dino kale, & peas
From ALBA Organics: Cauliflower, de ciccio broccoli, fuji apples, chioggia beets, & minneola tangerines
Spotlight on: Cabbage!
As a child (and, admittedly, to this day), my favorite author was Roald Dahl. I have read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory more times than I can count. For those familiar with this book, you may remember the young protagonist, Charlie Bucket. Charlie lived in a small, poorly heated house with his parents and four grandparents. The Buckets were very, very poor and struggled to feed 7 mouths each day. According to the book:
"There wasn't even enough money to buy proper food for them all. The only meals they could afford were bread and margarine for breakfast, boiled potatoes and cabbage for lunch, and cabbage soup for supper."
As you can imagine, for many years I associated cabbage with a despondent, hungry Charlie Bucket. "Poor Charlie!" I would think to myself. "All he and his family have to eat is cabbage! How awful!" I'm not even sure I knew what cabbage was the first (twenty) time(s) I read the book. But it didn't matter, for Dahl's words succeeded magnificently in articulating all I needed to know: cabbage = not good. Cabbage, to me, was the complete antithesis of Willy Wonka's wondrous chocolate factory: bland and unappetizing.
How wrong I was! It's really too bad the Buckets did not have the cabbage recipe I am about to share with you. It comes from Molly Stevens' cookbook on braising*, All About Braising, The Art of Uncomplicated Cooking. In it, Stevens goes so far as to dub this dish the "World's Best Braised Green Cabbage." This assertion sparked such skepticism in me (how good could braised cabbage possibly be?) that I had to try the recipe out for myself. As a result, I learned that cabbage can, in fact, be flavorful and delicious enough to deserve the title of "World's Best Braised Green Cabbage." And you can, too! Here's how:
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Oil a 9 x 13 baking dish.
3. Cut one head of cabbage into 8 wedges and lay in the baking dish.
4. Scatter a thickly sliced yellow onion and 1 large carrot (cut into 1/4 inch rounds) over the top.
5. Drizzle 1/4 cup olive oil and 1/4 cup chicken stock over the top.
6. Season with salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes.
7. Cover tightly with foil.
8. Bake 1 hour.
9. After 1 hour, remove the foil and flip the cabbage over. Re-cover, and bake for one additional hour.
10. When the cabbage is tender, remove the foil, increase the heat to 400 degrees Fahrenheit, and brown the vegetables for about another 15 minutes.
11. Sprinkle with sea salt and serve.
*Braising, for those unfamiliar with this cooking technique, is "a form of moist-heat cooking in which the item to be cooked is partially covered with liquid and then simmered slowly at a low temperature" (thanks, about.com!). I have always associated braising with meat (think: pot roast), but as I learned through this recipe, it's a method that serves veggies just as well.
Luckily for you, we have some beautiful cabbage available, harvested right from the Stanford Community Farm. Stop by the stand tomorrow and start braising!
See you at the Produce Stand!
(Picture source: http://bexar-tx.tamu.edu/HomeHort/F1Column/2007%20Articles/Plant%20of%20the%20Week/SEP1%20%27Cheers%27%20Cabbage.htm)
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