Top | Sides and Salads

Oven Braised Green Cabbage with Onions and White Wine

(recipe, Katie Hickey)

Introduction

For a main dish, top with a poached egg. As a side, it's good sprinkled with a little cider vinegar.

Ingredients

  1. 1 medium head green or savoy cabbage, about 2 pounds
  2. 1 large yellow onion, sliced into rough ⅓-inch slices
  3. 1 large carrot, sliced into ¼-inch rounds
  4. ¼ cup good-quality chicken stock, beef stock or water
  5. ¼ cup white wine
  6. Drizzle of olive oil
  7. 2 bay leaves
  8. Choped sage or 2 sprigs thyme, if you've got it
  9. Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
  10. ⅛ tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
  11. Maldon salt, or fleur de sel, to taste

Steps

  1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit, and position a rack in the middle of the oven.
  2. Peel off and discard from the cabbage any bruised or messy outer leaves. Give the cabbage a quick rinse under cool water, and dry it lightly. Cut it into 8 wedges, and trim away some of the woody core, leaving enough to hold each wedge intact. Arrange the wedges in a 9 x 13 baking dish. They may overlap a little, but you want them to lie in a single—if crowded—layer. If they don’t fit nicely into the dish, remove one wedge and set it aside for later use in a quick sauté, salad, or soup.
  3. Scatter the onion and carrot over the cabbage, and pour the stock and wine over the whole mess. Drizzle with some olive oil (not too much); season with a couple pinches of coarse salt, a couple grinds of the pepper mill, the herbs, bay leaves and the red pepper flakes. Cover the dish tightly with foil, and slide it into the oven. Cook the vegetables for 1 hour; then remove the dish from the oven and gently turn the cabbage wedges. If the dish seems at all dry, add a couple tablespoons of water. Cover the dish, and return it to the oven to cook until the vegetables are very tender, about an hour more.
  4. When the cabbage is completely tender, remove the foil over the baking dish, turn the oven up to 400 degrees, and continue cooking until the vegetables begin to brown lightly on their edges, another 15 or so minutes.
  5. Serve warm, topped with a poached egg, if you want, and sprinkled with plenty of good, flaky Maldon salt and freshly ground black pepper and cider vinegar, if you want.