If goose, then cabbage! Here's how the chefs make it
Red and white heads of cabbage deserve the same compliments as meat and dumplings. The reward for care, knowledge of the raw material and a creative point of view is often a delicious recipe that respectfully updates tradition. How do chefs go about it? We've put together tips that will make cabbage a delight, and not only alongside the St. Martin's goose!
1. Stewed cabbage starts with sautéing onions in butter, fat or the fat from the meat with which the cabbage is served. Caraway seeds and other spices are then sprinkled in, followed by the cabbage cut into small strips, which are salted and stewed under a lid in its own juices - without basting! The softened cabbage is seasoned with vinegar and/or dry (red or white) wine, sugar, salt and pepper.
From practice: Cabbage has enough juice of its own! The added liquid is just to reflect the flavour and then boil off. The vinegar, red wine and dry cider are therefore left to simmer, either in the cabbage or in the onion base.
2. When acidifying cabbage, it pays to reach for ferments, but also apple cider vinegar, wine, raspberry vinegar and verjus (juice from unripe grapes). The flavour of the dish is balanced by sweet juice from apples, pears or beetroot, which is poured over the cabbage during stewing.
Inspiration:
Some cooks first dissolve the brown sugar in red wine vinegar and reduce the liquid, to which then come the chopped onions and red cabbage. Everything is simmered for about 15 minutes, seasoned with juniper, sage and green peppercorns and finished off with a splash of red wine. For a head of cabbage you will need 125 ml of vinegar and 100g of sugar, a larger onion, a teaspoon of green peppercorns and juniper berries, a sprig of sage and 750 ml of wine.
3. Red cabbage will benefit from a pinch of cinnamon, star anise or cloves, and the onion base for white cabbage likes the addition of ground red pepper. The choice of spices depends on the chef's intention, but the cabbage should remain the main character in any preparation.
4. Almost finished (red) cabbage welcomes preserves - pickled cranberries, chokeberries, rowanberries, sea buckthorn, currants and other berries bring with them a sweet and sour flavour and a more interesting texture. At Kuchyň, the cabbage is briefly simmered in apple cubes so that they don't boil over, while Eska recommends adding pieces of grilled apples and pears or grated quince. These give the cabbage a sour undertone and a magical aroma.
Tip:
Quince puree or quince marmalade also goes well with duck and pork with cabbage. At Café Savoy they serve duck with raspberry cabbage. The shredded red cabbage is slowly simmered in a base of red onion and red wine and finally seasoned with raspberries.
5. To finish, the cabbage may or may not be topped with boiled or raw potatoes, However, sugar will also thicken it. One half of the pot is covered with the sautéed cabbage, while the other half is covered with caramelised (brown) sugar, which, when stirred, will fine-tune the consistency and flavour of the side dish.
White cabbage don't be afraid to thicken with the right amount of classic roux - the basic recipe calls for a 1:1 ratio of flour to butter (lard or fat) and at least a quarter of an hour of cooking.
Something extra:
Chefs would confit duck and simultaneously make sauerkraut. The chopped vegetables are salted (1.5% salt) and mixed with sliced horseradish, dill and burnt cumin, then squeezed, bagged and fermented for three to five days at room temperature. The fermented cabbage goes into the casserole with the onions fried in duck confit fat and topped up with a little stock, sprinkled with sugar and thickened with boiled potatoes towards the end.
At Café Savoy, the cabbage was fermented without the horseradish and cooled and mixed with fresh marjoram, thyme, chive oil and grated lemon zest. The perfect accompaniment to meat and potato pancakes!
6. Cabbage can surprise! The stewed side dish can be elegantly replaced by grilled cabbage or cabbage sauce, which, softens the drier dumplings. The juice of the red cabbage is strained through a fine sieve, sweetened with sugar or honey and simmered with spices such as cinnamon, star anise, cloves and wild spices, or even with red wine or fruit juice. The reduction is seasoned with salt and vinegar, intensified by the meat stock and rounded off with a knob of butter, which is used to glaze the sauce just before serving.
7. The cooks turn red cabbage into foam or puree. The vegetables should be sufficiently simmered and blended, seasoned like sauerkraut and softened with (brown) butter. Experimentation leads to gel from reduced cabbage juice being thickened with agar, or cabbage marmalade.
8. You can bake cabbage! Just grate it and cover the bottom of the baking dish with it, pile salted spiced meat on top and wait for the layers to cook through. The browned spots are transferred to a saucepan with the meat juices, briefly boiled and seasoned as in the recipes for braised cabbage.
At Café Savoy, red cabbage with duck is baked in an apple juice mixture with cranberries, red wine vinegar and duck fat at 165 °C until soft. Whole cinnamon was previously ground into the vegetables to release the sweet aroma and flavour when warm. Finally, the lid was removed from the roasting pan so that the excess liquid was baked off and the cabbage thickened nicely.
Cabbage in Czech kitchens:
In Podkrkonoší, duck was cooked with roprachtice cabbage. The shredded vegetables were salted, sugared and covered with vinegar, seasoned with cloves and refrigerated for an hour. Later, the onions were fried in duck fat and the cabbage was simmered with grated sour apples until tender, with a little red wine and the remaining juice from the pickled cabbage.
Festive goose was accompanied by larger pieces of cabbage cooked almost without water, in red wine with salt, caraway seeds and chopped onions. After a while, smoked pork belly and apple slices were added to the pot and the juice from the goose was added. The cabbage was then layered over the meat portions and everything was baked in the oven.
Poor harvests created so-called onion cabbage in the recipe books. Part of the onion cut into rings was fried in lard with melted sugar, seasoned with salt and cumin and covered with water. Then the rest of the raw onions were added - the mixture was simmered, dusted with flour and cooked for a few minutes. A similar 'cabbage' was made in Eska, where they roasted pork bones covered with lots of onions. This soaked up the flavour of the pork belly and succeeded as a wonderful part of the main course.
A less common recipe with turnips is also worth trying: thin strips of turnip are stirred into onions fried in butter and topped with cumin, salt and a little water in which they are cooked until tender. The sauerkraut is dusted with flour, covered with water and vinegar, sweetened and simmered for a few minutes.
The roast poultry is refreshed with a simple salad of fresh and fermented red cabbage, which is combined 1:1 with lemon zest and juice, a pinch of salt, pepper and chilli and a finely grated apple. The ingredients rest for several hours, ideally overnight, and are finished with olive oil, walnut oil or caraway oil.
A crunchy salad variant is also finely shredded red cabbage, which is marinated for several hours in a bowl with grated horseradish, orange zest and chopped coriander or parsley, orange juice, olive oil, a pinch of tonka beans, salt and pepper.
There are no limits to tradition! You can also tear the meat of St Martin's goose and duck and enjoy it with cabbage, for example in fermented potato pancakes.
Source: Ambiente chefs, Jiří Marhold
