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Stuffed Cabbage
Procure a large head of cabbage, boil it but not quite tender; then very carefully take out the middle and fill the cavity with a mixture of a tablespoonful of minced suet, two tablespoonfuls of bacon or ham, a like amount of cold meat, one raw egg, the grated rind of a lemon, a little grated nutmeg, and pepper and salt to taste. Milk may be used instead of the egg if desired. Tie with the string and put the cabbage in the oven, baking it for twenty minutes. Place on a dish and pour some rich brown gravy around it, but not over it. The cabbage should be frequently basted with dripping or butter, and must not be allowed to burn or become brown.
A late-Victorian way with leftovers, written for cooks who had cold roast meat and a stockpot on hand. Two things need attention: the oven is never named, and twenty minutes will not carry a whole stuffed head through.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given, and the book does not grade its ovens. The instruction that the cabbage "must not be allowed to burn or become brown" suggests keeping the heat low; a modern oven at about 350F suits. Covering the dish for most of the baking, uncovering only if it needs drying off, will keep the outer leaves from scorching.
- The twenty minutes is shortA large head, boiled short of tender and then stuffed cold, needs closer to 45-60 minutes at 350F for the centre to heat through. The filling contains raw egg and cold cooked meat; take it to 165F at the middle of the stuffing rather than trusting the clock.
- SuetBeef suet is the fat from around the kidneys, sold by butchers and often frozen. It is there for richness and moisture. Shredded packaged suet works; failing that, use finely chopped cold beef fat or an extra tablespoon of butter, though the texture will be softer.
- "Cold meat"Whatever the household had: roast beef, mutton, veal, chicken. Chop it fine, not ground, and season generously, since two tablespoonfuls each of bacon and cold meat is a very modest amount of filling for a large head.
- Scale of the stuffingAs written the mixture totals well under a cup, enough for a small cavity only. If you hollow out a full-sized head, multiply the filling by three or four and keep the proportions.
- Egg or milkThe egg binds; milk only moistens, so a milk-mixed stuffing will be looser and may not hold together when the cabbage is cut. The egg is the safer choice unless you have a reason not to.
- Tying"Tie with the string" assumes you cut a lid or wedge from the top before hollowing it out. Replace the piece, then wrap the head in kitchen twine like a parcel, or in a square of muslin, so it holds its shape.
- Rich brown gravyPeriod brown gravy was generally a reduced meat stock thickened with a brown roux. A well-reduced beef stock finished with a little butter serves. Pouring it around rather than over is deliberate, and fits the instruction that the cabbage not be allowed to brown.
- YieldOne large head, served in wedges, feeds four as a main course or six alongside a roast.
Stuffed whole cabbage belongs to a broad European family of dishes built on the same logic: a cheap vegetable made into a centrepiece by a small quantity of expensive meat hidden inside it. Versions turn up in French cookery as chou farci, in Central and Eastern European kitchens, and throughout English household manuals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, where the filling is generally whatever the larder held after a roast. The grated lemon rind and nutmeg here point towards the English tradition, that pairing being a common seasoning for forcemeats in British cookery books for well over a century before Oscar Tschirky compiled his book in 1896, though nutmeg is by no means unknown in French kitchens. Its presence in a Waldorf collection is a reminder that the volume was not only a record of hotel banquets, and this one is thrift cookery with a good gravy poured round it.