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Cabbage with Parmesan Cheese
Remove the outer leaves and cut one head of Savoy cabbage in halves; throw into boiling, salted water and boil twenty minutes. Drain and put carefully in a baking dish, pour over a half pint of cream sauce, dust thickly with grated Parmesan or other cheese, then with bread crumbs; bake in a quick oven fifteen minutes.
A straightforward gratin that needs only a few translations and one adjustment to the boiling time.
- Quick ovenSet the oven to 425-450F. Fifteen minutes at that heat is enough to brown the crumbs and heat the sauce through; the cabbage is already cooked.
- Half a pint of cream sauceOne cup of a standard bechamel or white sauce, made with about 2 tablespoons each butter and flour to a cup of milk or cream. It should coat a spoon, not run off it.
- Twenty minutes is too longHalved Savoy in boiling salted water generally needs closer to 10-15 minutes, until a knife meets slight resistance at the core. The full twenty risks leaving it waterlogged and grey, and it then spends another quarter hour in the oven.
- Drain hardCabbage holds a surprising amount of water in its ruffles. Set the halves cut side down in a colander for several minutes, or press gently with a cloth, or the sauce will thin and pool.
- Cutting for serviceHalves of a whole head are awkward to portion at table. Quartering, or cutting the halves into thick wedges through the core so they hold together, makes a neater dish.
- CheeseParmesan grated finely from a block browns better than pre-grated. The "other cheese" is unspecified; a dry hard cheese is the likeliest substitute, and Gruyere or a mature Cheddar both work, though they melt rather than crisp.
- CrumbsDry crumbs, not fresh, and a little melted butter tossed through them will help them brown in fifteen minutes. Fresh crumbs tend to absorb sauce and stay pale.
- YieldOne head serves four as a side dish, two as a supper with bread.
Savoy, the crinkle-leaved winter cabbage, is often said to have been a cook's favourite in nineteenth-century Europe and America for exactly the reason it works here: the leaves are looser and more tender than a hard white head, and they hold sauce. Dressing a boiled vegetable with white sauce, cheese and crumbs and browning it is the standard gratin formula that ran through household cookery of the period, applied in turn to cauliflower, celery, salsify, onions and endive; cabbage was the cheapest candidate. Books of this kind leaned heavily on Parmesan as the mark of a dish above the ordinary, since imported Italian cheese was a genuine expense in an American kitchen and a small amount went a long way.