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Boiled Cabbage
Cut off the stalk, remove the faded and outer leaves, and halve, or, if large, quarter the cabbages. Wash them thoroughly, and lay them for a few minutes in water, to which 1 table-spoonful of vinegar has been added, to draw out any insects that may be lodging under the leaves. Drain them in a colander. Have ready a large pan of boiling water, with 1 tablespoonful of salt and a small piece of soda in it, and let the cabbages boil quickly till tender, leaving the saucepan uncovered. Take them up as soon as they are done, drain them thoroughly, and serve. Time to boil: young summer cabbages, from ten to fifteen minutes; large cabbages or savoys, half an hour or more.
A straightforward English method that needs only two adjustments: skip the soda, and cut the times sharply.
- The pinch of sodaBicarbonate of soda was added to fix the green colour, and it does: alkaline water stops the vegetable's own acids from displacing the magnesium in the chlorophyll. It also softens the cell walls and speeds the loss of vitamin C, and can leave the leaf slimy. Leave it out; salted water and a short boil give a better result.
- TimingHalf an hour or more for a large cabbage or savoy produces the grey, sulphurous vegetable that gave boiled cabbage its reputation. Quartered savoy needs 6-8 minutes, shredded cabbage 3-5, young summer cabbage about 5. Test the thick rib with a knife tip.
- Uncovered panWorth keeping. Cabbage releases sulphur compounds as it cooks and an open pan lets them escape rather than condensing back into the water.
- The vinegar soakA sound old habit for garden cabbage, where slugs and aphids shelter deep in the head. Supermarket cabbage rarely needs it; a soak in plain cold salted water works as well if you are using a home-grown or farm-stand head.
- Salt and water volumeA tablespoon of salt to a large pan of water is a light seasoning. Use plenty of water at a hard rolling boil so the cabbage does not stall the pot when it goes in.
- DrainingDrain harder than seems necessary. Press the quarters gently against the colander or the residual water will pool on the dish and dilute whatever butter or sauce goes over it.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantity; reckon on one medium head, roughly 2 lb trimmed, for four as a side dish.
Boiling was the default English treatment for cabbage from the seventeenth century onward, and the soda trick appears in a good many Victorian and Edwardian household manuals — Mrs Beeton among them — as a way to keep the leaf green through a long cooking. The instruction reflects an era when vegetables were expected to be thoroughly soft and when appearance on the dish counted for a great deal; the connection between alkali and vitamin loss belongs to the vitamin research of the early twentieth century. The vinegar soak points to the other reality of the period: cabbage commonly came from a kitchen garden or a market stall rather than a washed and wrapped supply chain, and insects in the leaves were taken for granted.