Creative Cabbage.

I had a mind to make leftover cabbage the subject of today’s post, but, really, why would you consider anything else when you can make Bubble and Squeak?

Instead, I decided to find a few more unusual uses for this wonderful vegetable. The English journalist and food writer Ambrose Heath (1891-1969) has singlehandedly given me the recipes for the day. Heath was a very prolific and entertaining writer, with over a hundred original works or translations to his credit. Today’s recipes for ‘out-of-the-way fashions of cooking cabbage’ are from an article he wrote for the Manchester Guardian in December 1932 (the names of the dishes are mine, as Heath simply explained the methods.) As it turns out, the first two do use cooked cabbage, so at a pinch, leftover boiled cabbage would work.

Cabbage Purée.
If a cabbage must be boiled, then it might be turned at the last into a purée, as follows. Chop up the cooked cabbage finely, and pass it through a sieve. Make a white roux in a saucepan with a tablespoonful of butter and the same of flour, add the cabbage seasoned with salt and pepper, and mix in a couple of tablespoonfuls of vinegar. Stir this over the fire for ten minutes, and garnish it, if you like, with circles of hard-boiled egg.


Cabbage and Cheese.
When it is cooked, it can also be served pleasantly with cheese. Drain it carefully, and shred it as finely as you can. Lay the shreds in a well-buttered fireproof dish and sprinkle them with grated cheese. Add a few small pieces of butter, pour a little cream over, and cook in the oven for half an hour.

My final choices from the article are introduced by Heath introduces with the words “The Americans have two ways of serving cabbage, to be eaten hot or cold, which are rather interesting.”


Cabbage with Egg.
This is the hot one. Shred up the best leaves of a cabbage, omitting the outer leaves and the heart, and put them into a frying-pan in which you have first melted an ounce of butter and then added a couple of tablespoonfuls of boiling water to it. Season with pepper and salt, and cook it gently until the cabbage is tender. Then add a well-beaten egg, continuing cooking slowly (stirring well) for about three minutes, pour in a small cupful of sour cream, heat well through, and serve at once.


Cold Cabbage Dish.
The cold version is made this way. Shred the whole of the cabbage, except the stalk and outer leaves. Melt half an ounce of butter in a frying-pan, and add to it a quarter of a pint of vinegar; when this is warm, put in the cabbage, seasoned with salt and some celery seed or salt. Mix in a tablespoonful of flour and cook gently for a few minutes only. Now add a lightly beaten egg, and cook for a few minutes longer, mixing it well together. Resist the temptation to eat it hot, and wait till it is cold.


Quotation for the Day.

“Like warmed-up cabbage served at each repast, The repetition kills the wretch at last”
Juvenal