Cabbage is cool. Here's how to use it.

Oh, kale, that beautiful green curly head, unjustly accused of being disgusting by years of oppression in bottomless pots of school canteens! And yet, lo and behold, beneath the dark stiff leaves lurks a lush green umami scrub that represents one of the best companions of the winter season, a time of wrapping oneself in comforting layers of comfort food and blissfully snuggling up to a warm stove...

But poetry aside, kale (aka Brassica oleracea capitata) has some plain facts on its side: it's rich in vitamins A, B6, B9, C and K, trace elements, fibre and protein. Culinarily, it is highly interesting thanks to its intense umami character - the glutamine content, responsible for this fifth flavour, beats even some seafood or even chicken, so with the right preparation you get a really full, satisfying taste. And all this (now I feel like Horst Fuchs doing teleshopping, but it's the pure truth!) throughout the winter, because kale's main season runs roughly from November to April.

Plus, it can withstand frosts down to -15ºC, stores well and is widely available from a variety of growers. At this time of year, when vegetable beds are dormant and you would prefer to mimic them given the temperatures outside, this massive round vegetable (and its close relatives) is simply a total jackpot.

The snag that may account for its lower popularity is the need for sensitive heat treatment. The sulphur compounds that make kale a sexy, spicy-bitter ingredient don't tolerate long cooking times. This gives kale the charm and consistency of a wet rag, and the dreaded 'musty' flavour of overcooked cabbage that literature has taught us to associate with the lives of socially disadvantaged, broken families in the crumbling pavement of the forgotten periphery.

Avoiding it is very simple: just give the kale a treatment that allows it to soften while retaining a crispness and lush greenness that would be the envy of any pea.

Take 6 nice cabbages...

The key, of course, is quality raw material, bought just a few days before use. Choose cohesive heads without wilted or infected upper leaves. The right cabbage looks fresh, firm and heavy, like the head of someone you'd be happy to bury (in your arms, not under the ground). If you have one, break it down into individual leaves, wash them and cut out the tough inner ribs; the inner leaves are softer, so you can leave them whole or shred them. (Don't throw away the cut ribs - they're good, they just need considerably longer preparation. You can put them in soup, as they do with Brussels sprouts in Eska, or cut them into cubes and pan-fry them with bacon, perhaps for the base of a sauce.)

The best way to process the washed leaves is to blanch them briefly in a large pot with plenty of water. You want to keep the temperature in the pot as high as possible, so don't cook the leaves too much at once; once they're bright green, pop them in an ice bath. When they're ready like this, you can chop them up and toss them in melted butter in a saucepan. Season lightly with salt or spices, and you've got a versatile winter side dish - but at the same time, it would be a shame not to give the kale some company in which to flourish even more.

Mohlo by
vás zajímat

Mohlo by vás zajímat

Potatoes, flour and salt: How to make Slovakian lokše

Classic comfort food

A tried-and-tested combination that you'll find in various incarnations across Europe is cabbage + potatoes + a touch of smoked meat (bacon, sausages, ham...). An inspiring, salivating spectrum of traditional and often "poor" dishes: in Andorra, it takes the form of fried pancakes trinxatin Portugal, the traditional soup is made from the cabbage along with potatoes, olive oil, garlic and sausage caldo verde, and the Tuscans have come up with a perfectly zero waste eintopf called ribollita.

This thick, typically wintry soup is said to have its roots in the Middle Ages, when poor peasants would pick up leftover bread from the tables of their (literal) breadwinners and then re-cook it at home (hence the name, perhaps) with root vegetables, beans, a moderate amount of kale and parmesan, another tried-and-tested boost of earthiness.

In Ireland or Holland, they mix cabbage with potatoes into a mash with which they roast a sausage. A local version of this punchy threesome is a mixture of stewed potatoes, onions and cabbage enriched with mashed potatoes and usually some meat - one of those dishes you're more likely not to put on Instagram, but it sets the mood of winter's quiet contemplation perfectly.

The attached recipe from Lokal U Bílé kuželky follows the same path. Kale, which like other vegetables is sourced from farmer Petr Aujeský from the Polabí region, is most often found in Kuželka in the form of soup with toasted bread, kale meatballs and beef neck stewed in kale. However, they shared with us a variation on pigeon or golubki, a traditional folk dish of Central and Eastern Europe. They are usually made from cabbage leaves, but local chefs Jakub Novák and Martin Filip work with briefly fermented cabbage leaves, whose sour taste adds another dimension.

Filling the leaves is a great playground, allowing for lots of variations, plus zero waste, because you can make great use of all sorts of leftovers in the fillings, like cold meat from Sunday lunch. Instead of the bun, you can try boiled rice, as M.D. Rettigova, the patron saint of honest home cooking, did, the meat component can be replaced with mushrooms, vegetables, cheese or tempeh, and you can even go crazy with seasoning the mixture.

Whichever way you choose, you can either bake the leaves rolled up into packets like the chefs at Lokal or gently fry them in butter on all sides. Martin Filip adds another tip: "I like fish - catfish or trout - pan-roasted in a cabbage leaf. The boneless fillet is cooked in its own juices in the leaf."

Have you had enough potatoes? British chef and longtime food self-sufficiency pioneer Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall swears by pairing kale or chard with chestnuts. With its starchy texture and natural sweetness, the seasonal contemporaries make a great counterbalance to the savoury Brussels sprouts, whether you combine them in a creamy soup of cooked, blended chestnuts, where you put the pieces of courgette in with the roasted bacon and let them warm up for a while, or in a side puree.

Cooked mashed chestnuts with similarly prepared kale make a warm, earthy counterbalance to traditional turkey, ham hock or grilled mushrooms. I don't know about you, but I don't find the cold so unbearable anymore...

The article was published in the winter issue of the customer magazine A*, which is free to take in Ambiente restaurants. Enjoy!