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Savoy Cabbage, Stewed
Take one moderate-sized savoy--or two cabbages. Cut it into thin slices as if it were going to be pickled, and place it in a stewpan in which a slice of fresh butter has been already dissolved. Let it simmer gently for two hours. Take up the savoy, thicken the quantity of liquor which has run from it with flour, add pepper and salt, and serve very hot. A savoy or cabbage prepared in this way is much superior to one that is plainly boiled. Time to stew, two hours. Probable cost, 2d. to 4d. each. Sufficient, one moderate-sized savoy for three or four persons.
A butter-braise with no added liquid: the cabbage cooks in the water it releases. Everything depends on keeping that moisture in the pan.
- The hinge: a tight lid and low heatNo water is added. The recipe does not say to cover the pan, but with only the cabbage's own moisture it will need a close lid and a bare simmer; if steam escapes freely the shreds can scorch on the butter before they soften.
- Butter quantity"A slice of fresh butter" is unquantified; something like 2 oz (about 4 tablespoons) for a 2 lb savoy is a workable amount and enough to keep the base from catching.
- Two hours is longThinly shredded savoy is fully tender in 40 to 60 minutes over low heat. The full two hours gives the soft, almost jammy texture the book is after, but the colour goes drab and the sulphurous notes build; stop earlier if you want the leaves to keep some body.
- "As if it were going to be pickled"That means finely shredded, roughly 1/8 inch, as for sauerkraut. Quarter the head, cut out the core, and slice across the leaves.
- Thickening the liquorThe rendered juice can be more than you expect from a 2 lb head, though it will still be a small quantity. Work equal parts soft butter and flour into a paste and whisk it in off the heat, then boil for a minute to cook out the raw flour; dry flour tipped straight in will lump.
- Savoy versus plain cabbageSavoy's crinkled leaves are looser and thinner than a white or Dutch cabbage and will collapse faster. If substituting a dense white cabbage, expect it to want the longer end of the timing.
- Cost and yield"2d. to 4d. each" is the Victorian retail price and tells you only that savoys were cheap. One medium head, about 2 lb, serves three or four as a side.
- SeasoningPepper and salt go in at the end, after the liquor has reduced and thickened; salting earlier draws out more water than the pan can usefully reduce.
Savoy cabbage is generally said to take its name from the Alpine duchy of Savoy, and the crimped-leaf types have long been associated with that corner of France and Italy; in Britain they became the standard hardy winter cabbage, standing in the ground through frost when smoother varieties rotted. The closing remark that this is "much superior to one that is plainly boiled" is the point of the entry, which comes from Cassell's Dictionary of Cookery, compiled for middle-class English households in the 1870s and reissued for decades after. Braising in butter with no added liquid survives essentially unchanged in the modern practice of stewing shredded cabbage in its own moisture.