I couldn’t write a Polish recipe book without sneaking in a few cabbage recipes, and I hope they will convince you that cabbage is a great vehicle for flavour, as well as being very inexpensive. This is a lovely side dish, flavoured with caraway, which is a typical Polish flavour. If you’re not keen on caraway, try fennel seeds instead. I don’t think we eat enough red cabbage; it’s very underrated and usually only appears at Christmas time. Try this with any of the pork dishes in this book, or even the roast duck – it works really well. If you like, you can purée this cabbage (you can do the same with beetroots) for an alternative and more modern texture. Pictured here with White cabbage with bacon.
Ingredients
- 1 head red cabbage
- 2 tsp vegetable oil
- 1 tsp butter
- 1 red onion, finely diced
- 2 red apples, peeled and sliced or chopped
- 2 tsp caraway seeds, lightly bashed
- 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
- 1 tsp honey
- 4 fl oz ½ cup (125 ml) vegetable stock
- sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
How to Make It
- Chop the cabbage in half and remove the core. Slice the cabbage, then roughly chop into smaller pieces.
- In a large, heavy-based pan or Dutch oven, heat the oil and butter, add the onion, apples and caraway seeds, and cook over a low heat for 10 minutes until softened.
- Add the cabbage, vinegar, honey and stock. Season, stir well and simmer for 30 minutes until the cabbage is tender. Serve hot.