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Grand Union Cabbage
Select a small, heavy cabbage and roll back the outside leaves. Cut out the center, leaving the shell entire. With a sharp knife slice the heart of the cabbage very thin and soak in ice water till crisp. Drain and dry between towels.
Add two green peppers cut in fine strips and mix with a French dressing. For this use half a teaspoon of salt, a quarter teaspoon of pepper, one tablespoon of vinegar and four tablespoons of salad oil. Stir till well blended, pour over the cabbage and peppers, then refill the bowl. -Stella A. Downing.
A slaw served in the hollowed-out cabbage itself, dressed with a plain vinaigrette. Nothing here is difficult; the whole dish rests on how thinly the heart is cut and how cold it goes to the table.
- The hinge: shred fine, chill hardCabbage cut thick tastes coarse and turns limp under dressing. Slice the heart as close to shavings as your knife or a mandoline allows, then give it 20-30 minutes in ice water so the cells swell and stay crisp. Drain and dry thoroughly, or the water will thin the dressing into a puddle.
- Cutting the shellA small, dense green cabbage of about 2 lb works best; loose Savoy will collapse. Trim the base flat so it sits upright, then core it out with a paring knife, leaving a wall roughly half an inch thick. Keep a second cabbage on hand if you want a fuller bowl.
- Green peppers"Green peppers" here means unripe sweet bell peppers. Two modern bells is a generous amount for one small cabbage; cut them in matchsticks rather than dice so they read the same as the shredded leaf.
- The dressing quantityHalf a teaspoon salt, quarter teaspoon pepper, 1 tablespoon vinegar and 4 tablespoons oil is about a third of a cup, enough to gloss roughly 4 cups of shredded cabbage. The 4:1 oil-to-vinegar ratio is gentler than the 3:1 common today; if you want more edge, add a second spoonful of vinegar.
- "Stir till well blended"Whisk the salt into the vinegar first so it dissolves, then beat in the oil. Without an emulsifier it will separate within minutes, so dress the cabbage immediately before filling the shell.
- Timing and yieldServes 6 as a side. Dress it no more than 15 minutes ahead; salt draws water out of cabbage fast and the shred goes limp if it stands. Chill the empty shell while you prepare the filling.
Composed salads served in an edible container were a mark of ambition in turn-of-the-century American cooking, when a dish's appearance on the table counted for a great deal: tomatoes hollowed for chicken salad, orange shells for fruit, and cabbage heads for slaw. The name may nod to one of the Grand Union enterprises of the period -- the Saratoga hotel or the grocery chain -- rather than to any place of origin, but nothing in the recipe says so. The contributor's credit line indicates a reader submission, a common way for magazines of the period to build their recipe stock; nothing further is known here about Stella A. Downing. The French dressing here is the original article - oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, nothing more - a long way from the sweetened orange-colored bottled product that later claimed the name in the United States.