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SAVOY CABBAGE (a la Creme)
Slice a savoy into thin strips, and in doing so remove the stalk entirely. Wash and drain the savoy, and boil in the usual way till tender. Turn it into a colander, press the water from it, and afterwards mince it slightly. Dissolve a slice of fresh butter in a clean saucepan, put in the savoy, season with pepper and salt, and stir it over the fire for a few minutes till it is dry. Dredge a table-spoonful of flour over it, and add very gradually a quarter of a pint of thick cream. Serve very hot. Time, thirty to forty minutes to boil the savoy. Probable cost, 2d. to 4d. each. Sufficient, a moderate-sized savoy for four persons.
A plain creamed cabbage that comes off well once you ignore the original boiling time. Everything else is sound.
- Boil it for minutes, not half an hourThe recipe gives thirty to forty minutes even though the savoy has already been cut into thin strips; finely shredded savoy is tender in 5 to 8 minutes in well-salted boiling water. Held to the original time it collapses into grey pulp and loses all its sweetness.
- A slice of fresh butterRead this as about 1 oz, or 2 tablespoons. "Fresh" here indicates unsalted butter, as opposed to salted butter kept for storage; use unsalted so you control the seasoning.
- A quarter of a pint of thick creamAn imperial quarter-pint is 5 fl oz, a scant 2/3 cup. "Thick cream" means double cream (about 48 per cent fat); heavy cream (about 36 per cent) is the nearest US substitute. Single cream or half-and-half will thin out and may split against the hot pan.
- Dry the cabbage properlyThis is the hinge. Press hard in the colander, then keep stirring over the heat until no more steam rises, otherwise the flour and cream sit on a layer of cooking water and the sauce breaks or goes watery on the plate.
- Cook the flour before the creamA tablespoon dredged over the buttery cabbage needs a minute or two of stirring to lose its raw taste. Then add the cream in stages, as instructed -- all at once and it will not thicken evenly.
- Mince it slightlyA few passes with a knife through the drained cabbage, not a purée. The point is to break up long strands so the sauce coats rather than slides off.
- Yield and servingOne medium savoy, about 1 1/2 lb trimmed, serves four as a side dish. It wants to be served immediately; reheated, the cream tightens and the cabbage turns sulphurous. A grating of nutmeg is period-appropriate and welcome.
Savoy is the crinkle-leaved, hard-headed winter cabbage, its name generally traced to the Alpine duchy of Savoy, and in Victorian Britain it was a cheap market vegetable -- this entry puts a whole head at twopence to fourpence. Dressing it à la crème is the familiar nineteenth-century move of taking a common vegetable and finishing it in the French manner, and the method here is a sauce built in the pan rather than made separately: butter, a dredge of flour, cream added by degrees. The instruction to remove the stalk entirely reflects an era when cabbage was boiled long and hard and the thick ribs were considered coarse; today the ribs are often kept and simply given a head start.