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Harlequin Cabbages
Shred some red cabbage, to half a pound of it add two medium sized apples, minced finely without core or skin, a bit of fat bacon, season with pepper, salt, vinegar, which should be tarragon vinegar, and put it to simmer in some gravy or milk and water. It should cook for an hour over a gentle fire. Cook separately some green cabbage, cleaned, boiled till tender in salted water, chopped, then put back on a gentle fire with salt, pepper, a dust of nutmeg, and some fat or butter. Let it heat and mix well, and then serve the two colors side by side in the same dish; the red cabbage has a sour and the green has a nutty flavor which is very agreeable.
A two-pan side dish: red cabbage braised sweet-sour with apple, green cabbage boiled then finished in fat, plated side by side. The whole point is the contrast, so keep the pans separate until the dish goes to the table.
- Scale it upHalf a pound of shredded red cabbage is roughly a quarter of a small head and serves two. For four to six, double everything and use a wide pan so the cabbage braises rather than steams in a heap.
- "A bit of fat bacon"Read this as 1-2 oz of fatty unsmoked bacon or salt pork, diced and rendered first so its fat coats the cabbage. The recipe specifies fat rather than lean, so pancetta or lardons are a closer supermarket match than thin smoked rashers.
- Liquid"Some gravy or milk and water" is unquantified; enough to come about a third of the way up the cabbage is a reasonable reading, in the region of half a cup for half a pound. Milk and water can curdle against the vinegar and the acid apple; stock or thin gravy gives a cleaner-looking result.
- Tarragon vinegarNot incidental. Tarragon vinegar was a standard Belgian and French pantry item and gives the anise note that carries the dish. If you only have cider or white wine vinegar, steep a few tarragon sprigs in it while the cabbage cooks. Start with a tablespoon and adjust at the end.
- The hour is realRed cabbage genuinely wants a slow hour, covered, at a bare simmer; it turns from squeaky to silky and the color deepens. The acid slows softening, so do not shorten it. Green cabbage is the opposite -- 6 to 10 minutes in salted water, until just tender, or it goes grey and sulphurous.
- ApplesTwo medium apples to half a pound of cabbage is a high proportion, and they will collapse into the braise as sauce. A firm tart variety (Bramley, Granny Smith, Boskoop) holds enough shape to taste; sweet eating apples disappear.
- Finishing the greenDrain the boiled cabbage well and press out water before returning it to the pan, otherwise the butter will not cling. Chop it coarsely, warm it through with butter, salt, pepper and a scant grating of nutmeg -- a minute or two only.
- ServingSpoon the two in adjoining halves of a warm shallow dish rather than mixing, or the red will bleed. It suits pork, sausage, goose or game.
The Belgian Cook Book was compiled in 1915 by Mrs. Brian Luck from recipes gathered from Belgian refugees who had fled to England after the German invasion; that is why the book reads like household cooking dictated from memory rather than tested kitchen writing, with quantities like "a bit of fat bacon" left to the cook. Cabbage and apple braised with vinegar and bacon fat is the everyday winter vegetable of the whole Low Countries and Rhineland belt, appearing in German, Dutch and Flemish kitchens under various names; the "harlequin" here is often taken to refer to the plating, a nod to the motley particoloured costume of the commedia dell'arte figure. The tarragon vinegar is a genuine regional marker -- tarragon was one of the herbs Belgian and northern French cooks kept steeped in vinegar year-round.