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Cabbage, Red, Stewed
INGREDIENTS.-1 red cabbage, a small slice of ham, oz. of fresh butter, 1 pint of weak ak stock or broth, 1 gill of vinegar, salt and pepper to taste, 1 tablespoonful of pounded sugar. AVERAGE COST, 6d. each.
Cut the cabbage into very thin slices, put it into a stewpan, with the ham cut in dice, the butter, 1/2 pint of stock, and the vinegar; cover the pan closely, and let it stew for 1 hour. When it is very tender, add the remainder of the stock, a seasoning of salt and pepper, and the pounded sugar; mix all well together, stir over the fire until nearly all the liquor is dried away, and serve. Fried sausages are usually sent to table with this dish; they should be laid round and on the cabbage, as a garnish.
TIME. Rather more than 1 hour.
SEASONABLE from September to January.
Cabbages. To these cauliflowers, broccoli sprouts, savoys and Scotch kale owe their origin. All are wholesome foods, richer, like all fresh vegetable, in heatgivers than flesh-formers in the proportion of 4 parts of the former to 1 of the latter.
They contain more water, chiefly in the inner leaves, than potatoes, parsnips, beetroot, or Jerusalem artichokes, but less than onions, vegetable marrows, or turnips, and the same quantity as carrots and tomatoes.
Cabbages should always boiled in plenty of water, quickly, and with the lid off the saucepan and a tiny piece of soda may be added keep them green.
The very young white leaves of a white hearted cabbage chopped fine are a fairly good substitute for lettuce in salad when the latter are scarce.
CONSTITUENT PARTS OF 1 LB. OF CABBAGE. 000 Water Albumenoids Starch, etc....
Fat ... ...
Mineral Matter ... 060 oz. grs. 60 14 105 0.0 ... 0 105 ... ... ... 000 000 000 OD ... 1 108 0 35 0 84 16 0
A braised red cabbage in the German and Flemish manner, sweet-sour and finished by reduction rather than draining. It works as written; the notes below cover units and one or two habits that have changed.
- The butter quantityThe original calls for a quantity in ounces but the figure has not survived legibly. Only a small amount is in keeping with the rest of the dish; err low, and add more if the pan looks dry.
- A gill of vinegarA gill is 5 fl oz in British measure, about half a cup. That is a lot of acid, and deliberately so: it keeps red cabbage from turning blue-grey and balances the sugar. Malt or cider vinegar suits it better than sharp white.
- Pounded sugarSugar broken from a loaf and pounded fine in a mortar, as sugar had to be before it was sold ready-granulated. Ordinary caster or granulated sugar is the direct substitute.
- StewpanA heavy saucepan or small casserole with a tight lid. The pan must be non-reactive -- enamelled cast iron or stainless -- because bare cast iron or aluminium will dull the colour.
- The slice of hamThis is a flavouring, not a portion: a thick offcut of gammon or unsmoked bacon, diced, is the right thing. Smoked bacon works but pushes the dish towards a different, heavier flavour.
- TimingAn hour covered, then an open reduction, gives genuinely soft cabbage. Watch the last stage closely -- once the liquid is nearly gone the sugar will catch on the pan base within a minute or two.
- Yield and servingOne head serves four to six as a side. The fried sausages laid round the dish turn it into a supper for four; pork sausages or a coarse bratwurst are in the spirit of it.
- Ignore the sodaThe general note on cabbages recommends a piece of soda in the boiling water to hold the green. It destroys vitamin C and turns the leaves slimy, and it has no place in this recipe in any case, where acid is what you want.
Red cabbage stewed with vinegar, sugar and a piece of bacon is associated with German, Dutch and Flemish cooking, and the sausages sent to table with it here point in the same direction. Mrs Beeton's seasonal note -- September to January -- fits red cabbage as an autumn keeper that could be stored and drawn on through the winter. The accompanying essay on cabbages, with its talk of "heat-givers" and "flesh-formers", appears to belong to a later edition rather than the 1861 original: those terms are Victorian nutritional science's names for carbohydrate and fat on one hand and protein on the other.