Ingredients

• 1/2 medium-size head of cabbage, chopped coursely
• 2 tbsp of olive oil for braising
• about 1/2 cup of water, optional
• 1/2 tsp salt, or more to taste
• 1/2 pepper, or more to taste
• juice of one medium-size lemon

Method

1. Remove the crisper tray from the Speedi. This recipe is made just using the pot.
2. Set the Speedi to Saute/Sear on level Hi5, and sauté the cabbage in olive oil until soft. Stir every 3-5 minutes so that the cabbage softens evenly and doesn't brown.
3. If it is taking longer than you like, heat the optional water in the microwave to nearly boiling and add the water to the pot. Put the Speedi's lid down so it steams. Of course, keep on stirring every three to five minutes.
4. When the cabbage is soft, add the salt and pepper. Stir and cook for a minute.
5. Taste the cabbage. Add more salt and pepper if it suits your taste buds.
6. Add lemon juice and serve.

Note:

I'm single, so this recipe only produces about two servings for a man of my appetite, but the recipe should double, triple, or quadruple easily.

Ingredients

• 1/2 head of cabbage
• 2 tbsp of butter
• 1 medium egg
• 1/2 tsp minced onion
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp pepper
• 1/8 tsp garlic powder
• 2 more tbsp butter

I saw a recipe for cauliflower hashbrowns, which struck me as interesting, but I didn't have any cauliflower in the fridge, although I did have half a head of cabbage. Hm. How about cabbage hashbrowns?

It struck me that cabbage has a lot of extra water and air in it, which would probably need to be removed before combining with egg to make the patties. The first steps are to get rid of that extra moisture.

1. I removed the core of the cabbage half, then chopped it fine. I sliced the remaining cabbage into 1/4" - 1/2" slices. Poured the chopped core into a food processer and then processed each of the slices till all was chopped.
2. Then I put 2 tbsps of butter into a frying pan, and I fried the cabbage until it had barely started to brown.
3. Then I poured the cabbage into a colander to allow it to drain and cool. After all, we don't want the egg to cook instantly when it hits the cabbage.
4. After the cabbage had cooled, I combined it with the remaining ingredients. Divided it into two. I fried the first pattie in one tbsp of butter, and the second pattie in a second tbsp of butter.

Results: taste was fine. They fell apart pretty easily. I'm thinking I should try two eggs next time. If that works better, then I might also try not precooking the cabbage.

Ingredients

• 1/2 medium-size head of cabbage, chopped
• olive oil for braising
• about 1/2 cup of water, optional
• 1/4 tsp salt, or more to taste
• 1/4 pepper, or more to taste
• juice of one medium-size lemon

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1. Saute cabbage in olive oil over medium heat until soft.
2. If it is taking longer than you like, switch to high heat and add water. Cover the pan so it steams.
3. When soft, add salt and pepper. Add lemon juice and serve

Turkey bigos with cumin and chipotle

The recipe for unstuffed cabbage is one of my favorite these days, and I keep on trying a variety of variations. Today's version uses ground turkey and canned tomatillos. "Bigos" is a Lithuanian/Polish dish with chopped cabbage and meat, so I'm claiming it for my generic name for the dish.

Ingredients:

• Olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 lbs ground turkey, as fatty as you can find it
• 1 chipotle, say about the size that would give you 1 tbsp ground
• 1 tbsp whole cumin
• 1 tsp black pepper kernels
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 1 28-oz can of tomatillos
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 small head of cabbage, chopped

Method

1. Fry the onions until soft in a big frying pan.
2. Add turkey. Fry till mostly cooked.
3. Grind chipotle, cumin and pepper in a spice grinder
4. Add spices to meat and onion mixture.
5. Put garlic through a garlic press. Add to the meat/onion mixture. Cook for about a minute.
6. Drain tomatillos, reserving the brine. Run the tomatillos through a blender. Add to the meat/onion mixture. Add maybe a half a cup of the reserved brine. Add salt.
7. Add chopped cabbage to mixture. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally until cabbage is soft. Serve.

This turned out adequately, but no great shakes. Next time I do it, instead of adding 1/2 cup of the brine, I'll add a cup of chicken broth (from powder or bouillon cubes), which I think would change it from being merely okay to tasty.

When I was in Russia last summer, I was looking for palm oil to make plov. To my surprise I spotted горчичное масло mustard oil in a Bekhetle. Mustard is used widely in India as a cooking oil. This is not the intense mustard oil used as a spice, but the vegetable oil derived from the mustard plant as a cooking oil. That caught my interest, so I bought a bottle and brought it back to the States. Turns out that in the States you cannot label this stuff as cooking oil because back in the 70s the erucic acid it contains was associated with toxic effects on the heart at high levels. (Thanks to the Wikipedia article for that info.) No negative effects in humans have been scientifically demonstrated. My general attitude to low-level associations with bad health is to say, “I don’t have time to be worried about this low-level crapola.” In various areas it is the traditionally preferred cooking oil. So I purchased myself a bottle.

Tonight I cooked with it for the first time, trying it in a dish where I thought it would show off its unique taste fairly simply: a bit of stewed cabbage. Here is what I did.

Ingredients

• mustard oil
• 1/2 of a large head of cabbage
• 1 tbsp powdered onion
• 1 tsp powdered garlic
• 1 tsp caldo de pollo (powder)
• 1 cup of water

Method

1. In a 12" pan (measured top rim-to-rim) cover the bottom of the pan with mustard oil. Turn the electric burner to half way. Chop the cabbage. Add the cabbage to the oil.
2. In the meantime mix the caldo with the water and heat it to just shy of boiling in the microwave, which will cut down your cooking time.
3. The cabbage should fry gently, stir it occasionally. You don't want it to brown, just to begin softening. When it is approaching softness, add the onion and garlic. Mix. Let cook for a minute.
4. Then add the caldo broth. Cook until the cabbage is soft.

Result

This turned out fine: a subtle cabbage dish. I had been expecting a much more aggressive mustard/brassica flavor, but that turned out not to be the case. I'd make it again, even for guests who didn't like spicy or aggressive food. I find myself wondering whether the version I bought was a particularly mild form to suit the delicate Russian palate. So I'll finish off the bottle, and then I'll be the stuff here in the US. Here it is not allowed to be sold with food labeling. Instead it is sold as massage oil, but people cook with it anyway. Cooking with massage oil... now that would bring a smirk to my face... and I can think of several people I would love to serve it too.

This is a dish I cook fairly regularly with variations on the spices. This time around I'm using some Indian chile that the Tadjik lady at my local market said would be spicy.

Ingredients

• sunflower oil
• 5-6 small onions chopped coarsely (two ordinary onions)
• 4 cloves of garlic, sliced
• 1 tbsp of whole cumin seed, ground in a spice grinder or pestle
• 1 tbsp of Indian chile
• 1/4 of a huge head of cabbage (half of a medium head), chopped
• 750 grams of ground chicken (~ 1 2/3 lbs)
• 1 cup of boiling water
• 1 chicken bouillon cube

Method

1. Chop onions coarsely.
2. Pour enough sunflower oil into the bottom of a frying pan to cover it. I'd guess the pan can be from anywhere from nine to twelve inches in diameter. Put the frying pan on medium heat.
3. Pour in the onions. Stir occasionally so that they all approach transparency together.
4. Once the onions are barely beginning to brown, add the garlic and cook till fragrant, which should be about a minute, maybe two.
5. Add the cumin and chile. Cook for one minute or so, stirring, to release the flavors into the oil.
6. Add the ground chicken. Fry. Stir occasionally, breaking up the chicken into smaller and smaller chunks.
7. Pour the boiling water into a cup. Add the bouillon cube. Mix it up till it is a broth.
8. Once the chicken looks roughly cooked, add the cabbage. Add some of the broth. Cover. Let it cook a while.
9. Stir occasionally. Add more broth if it seems like it needs it. The goal is to get the cabbage cooked and all the flavors mixed.
10. As the cabbage approaches being done, remove the cover so that the excess broth begins to evaporate and concentrate. It's okay if there is some liquid left, but we aren't aiming at a full-fledged stew.
11. Once done, turn off heat. Cover with a splatter guard so that more liquid escapes and flies don't land on the finished product.
12. Once you think it's ready, serve.

Notes:

Any time a Russian tells you that something is spicy, don't believe ’em. This recipe did have a minor bite, but it was not as spicy as the spice lady at the farmers' market said that ?Indian chile? would be. Okay, she was actually a Tadjik, still...

Nonetheless, this dish turned out great.

I'm currently in Russia. Back in the States we often cook with neutral tasting oils like safflower oil or Canola oil or mixed vegetable oil. That's understandable. They allow the taste of the ingredients to come forward. But I find myself liking Russian sunflower oil more and more. It has a distinct odor as it cooks, and a pleasant, subtle flavor in the resulting dish. Frankly, I'm tempted to try cottonseed oil and mustard oil before I leave Russia. The latter is legal here, but not in the States.

Ingredients

• Vegetable oil
• 4 small onions, chopped
• 4 cloves of garlic, sliced
• 1 tbsp cumin, crushed
• 1 tbsp ground chipotle
• 1 tsp pepper
• 750 grams of ground chicken (about 1.5 pounds)
• 1/2 head of cabbage, shredded
• 2-3 cups boiling water
• About 1 tsp salt

Pour vegetable oil into frying pan. Add onions. When they are almost translucent, add garlic. Cook for a minute. Add cumin, chipotle and pepper. Cook for a minute. Add chicken. Fry till done, stirring and breaking up into reasonable bite size. Add water and salt. Add cabbage. Bring to a slight boil, cover, and cook until the cabbage is soft. Remove from stove. Serve.

For the chipotle I used ground chipotle powder I had found at Cost Plus (World Market). Awesome. A tablespoon of that stuff gave the dish a bite, despite the fact that the chipotle had sat on the shelf for a year.

The ground chicken I used was made from breast meat, which is nearly fat free. It meant the broth was kind of boring. Next time I'll through in a bouillon cube.

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Notes: Properly speaking, bigus is made with both fresh cabbage and sauerkraut, some kind of meat, and often has prunes added, but people in Russia sometimes fudge and call any nondescript mix of meat and cabbage bigus, so that's the name I'm giving this dish.

I liked how my previous curried cabbage came out, but I wanted to try a more savory version, prefereable with chicken broth. The problem is that chicken broth isn't sold here, so you have to make your own. Well, if I'm going to do that, I may as well use the meat as well. So I decided to just use ground chicken since the local farmer's market sells it. To my surprise, there were also some hot peppers at the market, so I grabbed those, too.

Ingredients

• 1/2 kilo of ground chicken
• 5 spicy green peppers, diced very coarsely
• 1/4 head of cabbage, chopped
• 2 large onions, chopped
• 4 cloves of garlic, sliced
• 5 tsp curry powder (Russian sized teaspoons)
• 1 tsp salt (American sized, guesstimated)
• Water

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2014-01-01: I made this again today, minus the chiles. Pretty good. This should become one of my standard recipes.

Method

Chicken and onions into the frying pan till the chicken is cooked and the onions are soft. Add the curry powder and garlic. Cook till fragrant, one or two minutes. Add everything else, including enough water to keep everything steaming and make some gravy. Cover. Stir occasionally.

Notes

This turned out good. I'll add it to the list of foods I make at home back in the States.

The ground chicken meat had essentially zero fat in it. Next time I'll add some oil and soften the onions first separately. The market said it was фарш из куриного филе, which may mean breast meat. Not real heavy on the chicken flavor. Maybe I should buy thighs instead.

Here's how the dish looked.

I'm in Russia, and I need to use up 3/4 of a head of cabbage before it goes bad. Several days ago I had bought some curry powder for this purpose, so here's what I threw together.

Ingredients

• 3/4 head of cabbage, chopped
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 heaping tablespoon of curry powder
• 1 tbsp of sugar
• water
• salt
• sunflower oil

I sauteed the onions in sunflower oil until soft. Added the curry powder, cooked it a minute. Added the garlic, cooked it a minute. Added the cabbage, mixed it all up, then added enough water to not quite cover the cabbage and let it simmer until the cabbage was soft. Added some salt. Tasted it. Kind of bland because I had only used water, not chicken broth. Hm. How can I make this better? So I added a tablespoon of sugar. Wow. Now I have a slightly sweet curried cabbage. Pretty tasty.

Adding some tomato paste wouldn't be a bad idea. Could probably leave the sugar out in that case.

I have yet to see chicken stock sold in Russia stores, but I was thinking this would turn out well if I took half a kilo of ground chicken, sauteed the onions with it, then did everything else minus the sugar. I bet that would turn out pretty good.

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2016-01-30: Today I wanted to make curried cabbage again. This time it is a completely different approach.

Ingredients

• Vegetable oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 1 tbsp of Mae Ploy green curry paste (available at Asian markets)
• Water
• 1/2 head of cabbage, chopped

Method

1. Pour in almost enough vegetable oil to cover the bottom of the frying pan. Add onions. Saute till almost soft
2. Add garlic. Saute a minute or two.
3. Add curry paste. Saute a minute or two so the flavor infuses the oil.
4. Add enough water to slightly cover the bottom of the frying pan.
5. Add the cabbage. Cover. Stir every once in a while until soft.

This stuff rocked.

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 1/2 to 2 pounds lean ground beef
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 small cabbage, chopped
• 2 cans (14.5 ounces each) diced tomatoes
• 1 can (8 ounces) tomato sauce
• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar or wine vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• dash nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon sea salt

Method

In a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add the ground beef and onion and cook, stirring, until ground beef is no longer pink and onion is tender. Add the garlic and continue cooking for 1 minute.

Add the chopped cabbage, tomatoes, tomato sauce, vinegar, cinnamon, nutmeg, pepper, and salt. Bring to a boil. Cover and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes, or until cabbage is tender.

Yield: Serves 6 to 8. (Source)

Notes

• If your beef isn't lean, leave out the olive oil.
• Most of the heads of cabbage in my store are pretty big. I used only 1/2 a head both times, and it worked great.

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2013-05-22: This turned out pretty good. Definitely a repeater.

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2013-05-27: Made it again today. Really pleased. This will now be a regular dish because it is so easy. Next time around I might use half ground pork.

Somehow, though, I'd like to make it a bit more hearty and savory. Not quite sure what is missing. Could probably thinking the sauce with some corn starch. Some carrots and celery would probably make it more savory, but I'm not sure how that would work with the cinnamon, but it would probably be okay.

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2013-07-13: still in Russia. Made another variation on this. This time I didn't use cabbage, but rather a pound of sweet yellow peppers. (Would have preferred spicy ones.) Half ground pork, half ground beef. Skipped the cinammon and nutmeg. Instead used a tablespoon of ground chipotles.

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2014-05-14: spices this time

• 1 tbsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp ground red pepper
• 1 tsp ground black pepper

Good. For guests I would take it down to 1/4 or 1/2 tsp of red pepper.

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2014-11-29: spices this time

• 1/4 cup sweet hungarian paprika
• 1 tbsp ground cumin
• 2 tsp ground coriander
• 1/2 tsp ground red pepper
• 1 tsp salt
• 6 cloves of garlic, minced

This was a good spice combo. I had added 1/2 cup of hot water to the recipe. Next time to make it thicker, avoid that. If it doesn't get thick enough, use tomato paste instead of tomato sauce. And if that doesn't work, maybe some corn starch to thicken it.

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2015-12-04: this time I used:

• 1 tbsp of ground chipotle
• 1 tsp of ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp of black pepper
• 1 tsp of salt

Good stuff.

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2016-10-02: This time I thought I would replace the tomatoes and tomato sauce with a can of green enchilada sauce, add four sliced raw jalapeños (seeded), added some cumin and I deleted the vinegar, salt, cinammon and nutmeg. In other words, I Mexicanized the dish. I like it. May repeat.