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An Almost Waterless Dish
Cut a small or medium-sized head of cabbage into eight sections, like the sections of an orange, and arrange in the bottom of a casserole, oiled well. Between sections of cabbage place small carrots, new peas, and if you like, new string beans. Add 1 T water, cover tightly and bake in a moderate oven-350 degrees-until the vegetables are tender. After the vegetables have cooked about 30 minutes, place thinly sliced bacon over them. Return to oven and finish baking.
Edith E. Smith,
A wartime-style conservation dish that steams vegetables in their own moisture. The whole thing hinges on the seal.
- The lid is the recipeOne tablespoon of water is all the added liquid there is, so the pot must be genuinely tight or the cabbage scorches. A heavy lidded Dutch oven works; with a loose lid, lay foil or parchment under it before covering.
- "Casserole" hereThe word could mean the vessel as well as the finished dish, and this recipe clearly means the vessel: something is oiled, filled and covered tightly. Read it as a covered baking pot or oven-safe pan with a lid, not a shallow open baking dish.
- Oven temperatureThe recipe helpfully gives the number itself: 350F. Expect 50-60 minutes total for a small head cut in eight, longer if the wedges are thick.
- 1 TOne tablespoon. Small carrots and peas release a good deal of water once heated, which is the point of the method.
- Oiled well means wellCabbage sugars stick and burn on dry metal. Coat the base and the lower sides generously, or the wedges will not lift out intact.
- Timing the baconThe recipe lays it on at the 30-minute mark rather than the start. It does not say to uncover the pot; if you want the slices crisp rather than merely rendered, you will have to lift the lid for the last stretch, at some cost to the seal the method depends on.
- Peas and beansThe recipe adds these at the start with everything else. Fresh or frozen both work, but if you want them green rather than grey, add them for the last 15 minutes instead.
- SeasoningNone is specified. Salt and pepper the layers as you build them; the bacon supplies the rest.
- YieldA small head in eight wedges serves four as a side, or two as a supper with bread.
Recipes titled "waterless" or "almost waterless" circulated in American cookbooks from the 1920s onward, alongside heavy aluminum ware sold on the promise that tight-fitting lids let vegetables cook in their own moisture. The pitch was partly economy of fuel and partly nutrition: home economists of the era taught that boiling vegetables hard in a lot of water leached out minerals and the recently identified vitamins, and "cook in the least water possible" became a standard line in extension bulletins and domestic science teaching. A few slices of bacon here do the work of both fat and seasoning.