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Creamed Cabbage
Slice as for cold slaw and stew in a covered sauce-pan till tender; drain it, return to sauce-pan, add a gill or more of rich cream, one ounce of butter, pepper and salt to taste; let simmer two or three minutes, then serve. Milk may be used by adding a little more butter; or have a deep spider hot, put in sliced cabbage, pour quickly over it a pint of boiling water, cover close and cook for ten minutes, then pour off water and add half pint of rich milk. When the milk boils, stir in a tea-spoon of flour moistened with a little milk, season, cook a moment, serve.
Two methods in one paragraph: a plain stew finished with cream, and a quick skillet version thickened with a flour slurry. Both hinge on not overcooking the cabbage.
- A gillHalf a cup. "A gill or more" means roughly 1/2 to 3/4 cup of cream for a medium head of cabbage.
- Other measuresOne ounce of butter is 2 tablespoons. Half a pint of milk is 1 cup; a pint of boiling water is 2 cups. A teaspoon of flour is a very light thickening — expect a thin sauce, not a gratin binder.
- A spiderA cast-iron skillet, originally one with legs for standing over coals. Any heavy 10- to 12-inch skillet with a tight lid does the job.
- Sliced as for cold slawCold slaw is coleslaw: quartered, cored, and cut crossways into thin ribbons. Thin, even shreds cook in the ten minutes the second method allows; thick wedges will not.
- "Till tender" is shorter than it soundsShredded cabbage is done in 8 to 10 minutes. Long stewing releases the sulfur compounds that give boiled cabbage its reputation, and the shreds collapse into grey threads.
- Drain it wellCabbage holds a great deal of water, and any left in the pan will thin the cream to nothing. Drain in a colander and press lightly before returning it to the pan.
- Keep the cream below a hard boilTwo or three minutes at a bare simmer is enough. Rapid boiling with salt and acidic vegetable juices present is how the cream curdles.
- YieldThe recipe names no quantity of cabbage. A medium head, about 2 pounds, would serve roughly four to six as a side dish.
The Dixie Cook-Book belongs to the family of late nineteenth-century American compilations built up from contributed household receipts, and its vegetable chapter reflects a period when nearly everything green was boiled first and dressed afterward. Creaming was a common way to make a cheap, plentiful vegetable worth serving at table, either finished with fresh cream or, in households without a dairy surplus, with milk propped up by extra butter and a little flour — the thrifty stand-in that this recipe offers in its second half. The "spider" named here is a reminder of how recently the writing predates the modern range; the word properly describes a long-handled iron pan on legs, set directly over the coals of a hearth, and it survived in American cookbooks as a general term for a skillet long after the legs had gone.