There are many ways to cook and use white cabbage in cooking. We decided to figure out how heat treatment affects the taste and texture of cabbage and which cooking option is best.
1. Braising
White cabbage is very succulent, so it’s easy to braise it in its own juice, with a little salt and kneading with your hands at the beginning. But it doesn’t taste very good without fat. So braise the cabbage with butter or in a little fatty (30-38%) cream. And on a very low heat!
Braise the cabbage with butter or a little double cream
2. Roasting
For some reason we almost never fry white cabbage – and it’s so tasty! Slice the cabbage into large chunks (don’t remove the core so that it holds its shape), poach it briefly in boiling water or steam, dry it, then fry it in batter, in breadcrumbs or just like this in clarified butter over a low heat until golden brown.
You can also fry the white cabbage in breadcrumbs or in batter, or simply in ghee and it will be delicious
3. Baking
Larger pieces of cabbage (even larger than roasting slices) are best baked. To prevent the cabbage from drying out, it should be covered with a layer of fat – vegetable (olive, sunflower, sesame oil) or animal (butter or clarified butter, strips of bacon, melted chicken, goose or pork fat). Brush the cabbage every 10-15 minutes with vegetable oil or ghee. It is better to bake at a low temperature, 140-160 ° C, so that the cabbage has time not only to become soft, but also to caramelize.
Cover the cabbage with a layer of fat or oil to prevent it from drying out.
4. Cooking
Honestly, the most unprofitable way to cook it. Boiled cabbage is good only chopped in soups, and even then it becomes much tastier, if it is pre-fried very quickly in oil on a high heat or, conversely, a couple of hours sweat in a pot in the oven at a low (100-120 ° C) temperature. Try the first method for borscht and the second for soup. So that the cabbage does not lose juice when boiling and remains useful, cook it not directly in water, but on steam. You can put a bunch of herbs in the water.
Steam the cabbage without losing its juice when boiling so that it will stay wholesome.
5. Stuffing
You can stuff individual leaves of the white cabbage as well as the whole cabbage head. For stuffing or dolma cut off tough parts of leaves, blanch them for 2-3 minutes and then wrap stuffing in them. Cut off the top third of a whole cabbage, immerse the whole cabbage in boiling water for 10 minutes, turn it over, let the water run off, fill the space between the leaves with stuffing, tie the cabbage with culinary twine and boil or steam bake it.