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Cabbage and Onions
Peel and slice four onions; fry them brown in a saucepan, with two tablespoonfuls of drippings from salt pork or bacon; meantime slice a small white cabbage ; put it with the browned onions, teaspoonful of salt, little pepper; cover the saucepan tight, and cook its contents until the cabbage is tender.
A one-pan vegetable dish that depends entirely on the fat and on keeping the lid down. The original assumes a heavy pan and a slow fire.
- The hinge: keep it coveredNo water is added, so the cabbage steams in its own moisture and in the onion juices. If the lid does not seal, the pan will scorch before the cabbage softens; add a tablespoon or two of water only if it starts to catch.
- Drippings"Drippings from salt pork or bacon" means rendered fat saved in a crock, not the pan juices. Bacon fat is the closest modern equivalent; two tablespoons is right for a small cabbage. Butter or oil works but gives none of the salt-pork savour the dish is built on.
- A small white cabbageA small plain green head, not savoy and not napa; something in the region of 1.5 to 2 lb suits the two tablespoons of fat. Quarter it, cut out the core, and shred it fairly fine so it collapses at about the same rate as the onions.
- Fry them brownReal browning, not just softening, over medium heat -- 10 to 15 minutes or longer. It is the main source of sweetness and colour in the finished dish, so it is worth the time.
- TimingOnce the cabbage goes in, expect 15 to 25 minutes over low heat, stirring once or twice. Tender here means yielding, not disintegrating; taste at 15 minutes.
- SaltA full teaspoon assumes the fat carries little salt of its own. If you are using commercial bacon fat, start with half and correct at the end.
- YieldAbout four side servings. Good with pork, sausage, or boiled potatoes; a splash of cider vinegar at the end is in keeping with period cabbage cookery and cuts the fat.
Cabbage stewed in pork fat with onions was a common cool-weather vegetable dish in American kitchens, found in German, Irish and Anglo-American cooking alike, and it survives in the South as fried or smothered cabbage. Its presence in a household manual of this kind reflects two features of the period pantry: cabbage stored for months in a cellar or buried, and rendered fat from salt pork and bacon saved and used as a everyday cooking medium. The instruction to cover the pan tight and add no liquid suits a coal or wood range, where a pot could be pushed to a cooler part of the top and largely left alone.