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Recipe: Michael's New Year's Cabbage

 
whippersnapper
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Yeah, I know New Year's has already passed, but I made this dish this year as a side to a roasted pork tenderloin (the other side was lingonberries), and it's not really *my* recipe either (it's a Russian friend's recipe that I've slightly altered), but here goes.

Ingredients:
1 small-to-medium head of cabbage
chicken stock (or vegetable stock, or even just water)
oil or butter
bay leaves
salt and ground pepper
your favorite tomato sauce (a sauce for pasta, not pizza)
cr�me fra�che (or sour cream)

Cook:
Cut the cabbage into coarse shreds. Start frying in a large, deep frying pan that has a little oil or butter in it. (I use a "fried-chicken" pan.) Add the liquid, bay leaves, and salt and pepper. (If you're using store-bought stock, you probably don't need any extra salt.) Remember to count the bay leaves because you'll want to remove them at the end. (My Russian friend would've also used whole black peppercorns, and counted them, and removed them at the end.)

How much liquid? How long to cook? Use your judgment. Cooking time is probably close to an hour. Stir from time to time, add more liquid if necessary, but not too much. This aim is not elegant tender/crisp slightly undercooked vegetables, rather a sloppy mass of cooked-down cabbage (but not too runny or soup-like, because you'll add sauce and dairy at the end).

When it's done cooking, remove from heat, take out the bay leaves, stir in some tomato sauce and the dairy, and it's done! A word on the tomato sauce: use something with a good tomato/vegetable flavor. I'd recommend *against* anything with oregano or pizza spices or garlic -- that's not what this dish is about. A word on the dairy: the Russian original would have used sour cream, but I prefer cr�me fra�che. I guess you could use yogurt, but I haven't tried that.
 
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Thank you MM! I'm going to make it for Map when she's back. If she doesn't like it, it's your fault!
 
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Originally posted by Michael Matola:
Yeah, I know New Year's has already passed, but I made this dish this year as a side to a roasted pork tenderloin (the other side was lingonberries), and it's not really *my* recipe either (it's a Russian friend's recipe that I've slightly altered), but here goes.



My first insctinct was - how bad could it have tasted that Michael took 18 days to post the recipe...........


- m................sorry couldn't resist!
 
Michael Matola
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sorry couldn't resist!

No problem. But it's your turn now. Post a recipe of something you like to cook.
 
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I am curious as to why you adapted your friends recipes. Was it to suit someone's taste ? Why adapt any recipe in general.

Because my local supermarket is stocking up on exotic vegetables I do stir- fries with them. A favourite is with tiny 1" cucumber-looking vegetables that are sometimes green inside (slightly bitter) and sometimes red ( slightly sweeter). It helps with giving some contrasting colour to the food.
 
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I am dying for that vegetable (don't know if it has a name in English) and can't go to India to get them :-(

Heat a couple of tsps of cooking oil in a pan.
Add mustard seeds, dried red chillies and curry leaves.
Once mustard seeds have spluttered, add chopped veg to pan and cook till done with a little water (optional).
Before removing from fire, add a couple of tsps of grated coconut.

: drool : : drool : : drool : : drool :
 
Madhav Lakkapragada
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Because my local supermarket is stocking up on exotic vegetables I do stir- fries with them. A favourite is with tiny 1" cucumber-looking vegetables that are sometimes green inside (slightly bitter) and sometimes red ( slightly sweeter). It helps with giving some contrasting colour to the food.


If I am not mistaken, that's the tindora (spelled tin-doh-ra). Its also available in cans, although they have too much sodium due to the brine solution, preservative. If that guess is correct, we generally don't use the bitter ones, only the non-bitter ones are considered good.

Originally posted by soumya ravindranath:

Heat a couple of tsps of cooking oil in a pan.
Add mustard seeds, dried red chillies and curry leaves.
Once mustard seeds have spluttered, add chopped veg to pan and cook till done with a little water (optional).
Before removing from fire, add a couple of tsps of grated coconut.



That's my standard recipe for all vegetables. My wife on the other hand, prefers fry's to cooked vegetables.

- m
 
Madhav Lakkapragada
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Originally posted by Michael Matola:
sorry couldn't resist!

No problem. But it's your turn now. Post a recipe of something you like to cook.




Well, actually, this weekend I was planning to make some carmalised roasted peanuts / cashew nuts. But forgot to buy butter / ghee so I didn't make any. Well, even if I had those, I was working today, so who knows if I would have had time or not.

Anyways, my weekend cribbing aside, here how I would do it -


Roast some unsalted (I know its hard to find) peanuts (if you are alergic you can substitute cashews, almonds etc) in a tea spoon of oil.
Using your hand, try to press them so that the skin comes off. (This is why we use the oil, so the skin peels off easily). Seperate the nuts from the chaff.

In another saucepan, take some chopped jaggery (brown sugar) and add some water. (Don't ask me measures. Actually it doesn't matter because it will evaporate anyways). Make sure there is enough water to drown all the jaggery, something like 1 cup jaggery to 2 (2.5 or 3) cups of water.
Heat it on a low flame so as to carmalize. Keep stirring, never leave it there. As it carmalizes and becomes thicker, add some butter or ghee.
When to stop: Take a small amount of tap water in a small plate (like a side plate). As the liquid thickens, put a drop of that into the water in the side plate. With your finger try to roll the drop into a ball. If it disolves in the water, keep it going on the low flame with the constant stirring. If you are able to make a small ball out of the drop, its time for immediate action. Remove the saucepan from the flame. Dump all the nuts into the carmalized liquid and mix throughly.
You can then spread the mix flat (in a plate and cut it into squares) or make them into balls. The critical judgement is in deciding when to stop the carmalization process and the constant stirring.

Ok that's the recipe. Sounds complicated ? Well there's a reason why I picked this for the weekend (although I never did, maybe next weekend). My eight month old daughter started crawling. I know, you would say child-proof your home immediately if you have not already done so, right! OTOH, according to traditions, when a new born starts to crawl, we make this dish and celebrate the occasion. Similarly, there are quite a few other diskes we are supposed to make to celebrate when the baby rolls onto her stomach, or when they take that first step. I don't know the recipies for all those celebrations. But I know the one for crawling and I think I am good at it. So I thought I will make it.

Later........

- m
 
Helen Thomas
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Originally posted by Madhav Lakkapragada:

If I am not mistaken, that's the tindora (spelled tin-doh-ra).
- m




That's what it says on the packet. Incidentally I was stopped at the till and asked by another customer what I intended to do with it and what was it. When in doubt - stir fry. Though some leaves go very bitter after frying. Is there a scientific explanation? Fried Vitamin C ?
 
Michael Matola
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HT: I am curious as to why you adapted your friends recipes. Was it to suit someone's taste ? Why adapt any recipe in general.

Taste, whim, what ingredients I have on hand, etc.

Sure there are some things that don't turn out well if you don't follow the recipe exactly. And sure there are dishes that exist in a canonical form (eggs Benedict, Ceasar salad, etc.), which one risks profaning by alteration. But I guess I seldom think of recipes as inviolate prescriptions, but rather as loose guidelines.

I had a delicious tomato soup the other day with dill and fennel. Next time I do this cabbage dish, I'll try adding some dill and/or fennel. Maybe it will turn out well; maybe it won't.
 
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Here's one of my favoutires. Really it's just a modified 'scrambled eggs' recipe, but I love cooking with raw ingredients..

Ingredients:
4-6 eggs
one brown onion
1-2 soft tomatoes
1 green chilli. Fresh or dried.
Some oil.

Method:
Dice the onion finely and put in a pot(20cm, 8" or similar) with the oil.
Cut up the chilli and add this too. If you don't like hot food remove the seeds.
Add a couple of tablespoons of oil.
Cook till the onions go clear.
Dice the tomatoes and chuck them in.
Cook till the tomatoes fall apart and the mixture starts to dry out.
Beat the eggs and stir in. Stir constantly until it's the consistency of scrambled eggs.

As i said, basically scrambled eggs, but can have a bit of a kick, and it benefits from not just the heat but the flavour of the chilli as well.
 
Helen Thomas
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Dave O'M : Great sounding recipe.
It's just crying out for ketchup on top IMHO.

MM : Dill and fish are terrific together.
Fennel's one of those veggies one is never sure what to do with other than treat like celery

Here's a cabbage recipe kind of for hors d'oeuvres - as a starter or for nibbles.

chop cabbage into fine 1" by 1/8" strands (larger if you want to taste cabbage)
add 1-2 brown or white or red onion chopped similarly ( use onion according to the binding , see below - a little imagination is required)
Add chili chopped, de-seeded or however you like it.
salt ( really important)

Make different kinds of batter/ binding and dipping sauce. the batter should be thick enough to coat the cabbage and hold together firmly. too loose and the cakes will break up on frying.

Tempura batter :
1 egg, 2 cups cold water, 2 cups flour.
Tempura dipping sauce; 1 cup dashi,1/4 cup mirin,1/4 cup soy sauce,1 cup daikon oroshi (grated raddish), grated ginger as desired, oil.

Poppaddom flour batters : Use any Chinese hot/ hot and sweet / sweet chilli sauces with these

Poppadam ( Papad) are round lentil-bean wafers. These are made with the flour of lentils or beans and have spices in them.

Just track the flour you favourite poppadom is made from and use that. Add spices and salt. Mine ( I think) is called the Harid Bean flour.

Bind the chopped cabbage in the batters and shape like mini fish cakes( for starters) or nuggets(for nibbles) and fry in a pan. Different batters diferent pans. 2 tablespoons of olive oil is enough for 10 cakes. Unfortunately, you'd need more oil for nibbles.

Another recipe I haven't tried but it'll look good.Found while googling for pappadom flours.

yin-yang presentation of two cold melon soups (honeydew and canteloupe), with some tandoori-style marinated grilled shrimp placed on top of some deep-fried pappadum chips floated on top. cut the pappadums into small circles, no bigger than 2" diameter, before frying them.
[ January 28, 2005: Message edited by: Helen Thomas ]
 
Helen Thomas
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It's the Matpe Bean flour.

Using onion / leek / potato rather than combining them are best.
Beats the finger food at M&S IMO.
 
David O'Meara
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Firstly: I don't like cabbage but thought the recipe looked interesting.

I was surprised, this is nice. Maybe a bit rich (although some of my substitutions may be to blame) but yummy. What would you normally serve this with?
 
Helen Thomas
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I think you mean Michael's recipe as I can't see any room for substitution in mine.

You'd serve my recipe with hot chili sauce or yoghurt-sour cream and chives for the faint hearted with oodles of gin, vodka, tonic, brandy , ginger ale, ale , or whatever your particular poison is.

With Michael's recipe I think you'd serve it with VODKA on the rocks.

I'm pretty sure the stuff is a pickling agent.

Michael do/can you pickle things in vodka ?
[ February 01, 2005: Message edited by: Helen Thomas ]
 
Ellen Zhao
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Hi MM, there was some technical accident with my web.de email account months ago and today...I sent you an email today explainging about it. Hopefully your mail server's spam filter is not as strong as the web.de's...
 
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