Cabbage Eaters of the World, Unite!

[The demands of my job, my family, and my household have gotten the better of me this week. So I leave you with this re-rerun, which originally aired on January 23. It's one of my favorite posts. By the way, I can't believe I've been doing this long enough to have material for re-runs. Almost a year! I think I'll need to celebrate that anniversary somehow.]

I come from a long line of cabbage-eaters. While I’m only half German, and therefore technically only half cabbage-eater according to the official definition (as defined by Cassell's Dictionary of Slang), I’m pretty sure the Finnish side has eaten more than its fair share of cabbage through the ages. The sad thing is, I can’t remember once in my life being served cabbage by any of my blood relatives. In fact, the only time I’ve ever been served cabbage (by someone other than myself) has been in the form of curry cooked by my Indian mother-in-law. Well, unless you count coleslaw. Which doesn’t really count, as it’s not cooked and therefore doesn’t carry the same baggage (ie: smell, much associated in times past with working class immigrant homes).

I’m not sure why it took me so long to be exposed to the wonders of cooked cabbage – maybe my relatives wanted to distance themselves from its pejorative connotations. Or maybe I just grew up in a time and place when all vegetables came from a can, and as far as I know, they don’t sell canned cabbage. (Very fortunate.) I think I was finally in my early to mid-twenties before I gave it a try and cooked some for myself.

As a side note, as I write this, I have in the back of my mind an M.F.K. Fisher essay from 1937 – “The Social Status of a Vegetable.”

    At the word spinach her face clouded, but when I mentioned cabbage a look of complete and horrified disgust settled like a cloud. She pushed back her chair.
     "Cabbage!" Her tone was incredulous.
     "Why not?" James asked, mildly. "Cabbage is the staff of life in many countries. You ought to know, Mrs Davidson. Weren't you raised on a farm?"
     Her mouth settled grimly.
     "As you know, she remarked in any icy voice, with her face gradually looking very old and discontented again, "there are many kinds of farms. My home was not a collection of peasants. Nor did we eat such – such peasant things as this."

At the end of the essay, Ms. Fisher asks, "Who determines, and for what strange reasons, the social status of a vegetable?" I really don't know, but I bet someone somewhere has written a Ph.D. dissertation on the subject since then. The question that's been troubling me is this: If cabbage is the low-brow vegetable, then what is its opposite? What is the high-brow elitist vegetable of our time? One that immediately sprang to my mind was arugula. And then I laughed, because arugula is actually in the same plant family as cabbage (Brassicaceae), so they're related! Poor country bumpkin cousin cabbage.

At any rate, I love cabbage and I'm not afraid to admit it. And while cabbage curry is delightful, sometimes I don't want too many extra ingredients coming between my taste buds and the sweet taste of the cabbage. So I was browsing my usual internet haunts, and came across this lovely recipe for Noodles and Fried Cabbage on Salon. It calls for nothing more than cooked noodles, cabbage, salt, pepper, and a truly ridiculous amount of butter (which believe it or not I actually reduced by more than half in my own version below). The author claims a Hungarian origin for this recipe, but I found that it's also considered to be German and Polish (the Polish name for it being haluski, and apparently it's hugely popular in Pittsburgh). Some people also fry onions along with the cabbage, and I briefly considered doing so myself, but swiftly decided against it, as I think for this dish it should be all about the cabbage. It might seem crazy, but it really worked for me. Really. And don't be scared of the butter. We peasants need it, to keep our backs strong. Well, I don't know if it will keep your back strong, but it will keep you pleasantly full figured. As my great-grandmother always said, and I really do believe this is true, "You need a little bit extra on you, in case you get sick."

Here's the version I came up with:
Fried Cabbage and Noodles
Adapted from Ann Nichols on Salon.com
Ingredients
1 large head of cabbage, thinly sliced in two-inch long pieces
1 and a half sticks of salted butter
1 pound of egg fettucine, cooked (You need egg noodles, it's just not the same without it. You could use the regular wide egg noodles, but I thought the egg fettucine had a nice toothsome thickness to it which worked well with the tender cabbage.)
salt to taste
freshly ground black pepper

Cook the noodles and drain according to package directions. Melt the butter in a pot large enough to hold all the cabbage. Throw in the cabbage and some salt and cook on medium to medium-high heat until the cabbage is very tender, and a bit brown in spots. Throw the drained noodles into the pot with the cabbage and mix thoroughly. Add more salt if needed. Serve with freshly ground black pepper on top. Don't skip the pepper – seriously, it's really important.

Green Tomato Pickle, South Indian Style

For some reason it took me a long time to find green tomatoes here in Georgia in the fall. But find them I finally did, a couple weeks ago, at the tail end of the season just before the first frost. Which ironically came early, after an unusually warm fall. It was also ironic that my friends in Minnesota and Seattle had plenty of green tomatoes – the summer never got warm enough for their tomatoes to ripen. I don't think they had much sympathy for my green-tomato-less plight.

If you happen to have a pile of green tomatoes lying around, and are sick of the usual suspects (fried green tomatoes do get tiresome after awhile) I recommend making this South Indian style green tomato pickle, which I learned from my mother-in-law.  Like all Indian pickles, it's salty, tart and spicy, and this one has that nice tomato umami flavor to round it out. Traditionally, Indians consume a bit of pickle with yogurt rice. Yogurt rice at its most basic is just that – plain yogurt mixed with rice. You could get fancier with the seasoning, and someday I will try to get around to explaining that, but you don't have to. Yogurt, rice, and a bit of salty pickle will do the trick. Typically South Indians will eat yogurt rice at the end of the meal. It's said to have a cooling effect and to help digestion. Sometimes, yogurt rice with pickle is my meal. What can I say? I love it.

Which leads me to a little story. In the very early days of our relationship, my husband had me over to dinner at his place. This dinner consisted of yogurt rice, pickle, and potato chips.  This was one of two standard dinners for him at the time. The other dinner consisted of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and potato chips. We sat down at his dining table, without silverware. He looked at me. "My people eat with their hands," he said. I looked at him. "OK," said I. So we both dug in. He ate quickly and neatly, blithely flicking balls of yogurt rice into his mouth without touching his lips. I ate like an eighteen-month-old toddler, smashing white mush into my face with my ham-handed fist. But I ate that yogurt rice with pickle all up. And had seconds and thirds. He has told me it was at that moment he first thought he could marry me.

Now you know the story of yogurt rice with pickle, and how it led to my family's existence. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

South Indian Green Tomato Pickle
4 tablespoons sesame oil (not the brown roasted sesame oil; unroasted sesame oil is golden in color, also known as gingelly oil at the Indian grocery)
2 teaspoons brown mustard seeds
¼ teaspoon asafoetida
2 teaspoons whole fenugreek seeds, ground
Approximately 15 medium-sized green tomatoes, chopped into one-inch pieces
2 teaspoons chili powder* (from ground dried birdseye chilies, or cayenne pepper)
1 teaspoon turmeric
Salt
Heat the sesame oil and mustard seeds in a large saute pan, until the mustard seeds start to sputter and pop out of the pan. Turn down the heat and quickly add the asafoetida and fenugreek. Stir for just a few seconds, then add the green tomatoes. (Do not burn the fenugreek, as it will become very bitter.) Stir to combine, then add the chili powder, turmeric, and some salt. Stir to combine. Cook on medium heat, stirring occasionally to prevent scorching, until all the tomato juice is cooked away, and the tomatoes are completely broken down and sauce-like in texture. This may take up to an hour. Taste and add more salt if necessary. The pickle should taste very salty. Store in jars and serve with yogurt rice. Or be creative. I'm sure there are several uses for this I haven't thought of yet.

*The chili powder found in Indian markets is made from ground dried red chilies, and is different from the spice mix called "chile powder" found in supermarkets. Cayenne pepper is a good substitute.

Sick Person's Soup

It's just over a week until Thanksgiving, and the food blogosphere is rife with Thanksgiving recipes. Call me contrary, but I'm writing about this spicy soup instead. You could serve this soup for Thanksgiving, but its gingery explosiveness would probably cause steam to come out of your Aunt Mildred's ears. She might start gagging, and gesticulating wildly just as Uncle Simon was passing the gravy, knocking it out of his hands and down onto the front of her flower print dress, and then she might scream in pain as hot gravy spread across her ample bosom, jump up and accuse you of trying to kill her and storm out of the house, get into her car and drive away, never to speak to you for twenty years until she's on her death bed and finally relents and calls you to her side to tell you she's decided to leave you her collection of cow figurines in her will. And we don't want that. Better stick to turkey and mashed potatoes. But after Thanksgiving, when you're sick of all those heavy carbs, and feeling run down from all the cooking and having to bite your tongue to ensure civility at the dinner table, you can make this soup and eat it all by yourself if you so desire.

The soup is based on a recipe for Sick Person's Soup from the excellent "Vegetable Soups from Deborah Madison's Kitchen." (Deborah Madison is the author of "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone," my go-to tome for pretty much everything.) I wasn't sick when I made this, and hopefully now I'll stay that way. This soup packs a wallop, enough to keep those germs away at least through New Year's, I'd say. Never underestimate the power of 12 cloves of garlic and three tablespoons of grated ginger. And the cabbage and miso and lime juice work their magic as well.

The original recipe called for even more ginger. You can add more if you want, but three tablespoons was more than enough for me. I also added a little soy sauce, soft tofu, and Asian wheat noodles (they resembled fettucine) to make it more of a meal. You could sub in another noodle if you wish. Just use what you have. Rice noodles would work well, or soba. Or heck, just use fettucine. I really liked the heft of my thick fettucine-like noodles – their solidity really worked well as a counter-balance to the intense sour lime, fiery ginger broth.

Sick Person's Soup
Adapted from "Vegetable Soups from Deborah Madison's Kitchen"
5 cups Chinese cabbage, chopped
1 celery rib, sliced
1 small onion, thinly sliced
1 carrot, thinly sliced
12 garlic cloves, 6 sliced and 6 finely chopped
16 oz. soft tofu, cut in 1-inch cubes
3 tablespoons grated ginger
1 jalapeño pepper, diced
Juice of 1 lime
¾ cup white miso
Splash of soy sauce
Splash of roasted sesame oil
Salt to taste
Noodles, cooked according to package directions (flat Asian wheat noodles would work well)

Bring 8 cups of water to boil in a large pot. Add the cabbage, onion, carrot, and 6 sliced garlic cloves, lower the heat, and cover. Simmer for 15 minutes. Add the tofu and simmer for a couple of minutes more. Turn off the heat and add the finely chopped garlic, jalapeño, lime juice, and miso. (It's helpful to first dissolve the miso in a bit of the soup water before adding it to the pot.) Add a splash of soy sauce and splash of roasted sesame oil. Add salt to taste. Ladle soup into bowls and add a serving of noodles to each bowl. Add more soy sauce and garnish with sriracha if desired.

At Long Last, Sambar That Tastes Like Sambar

I've known my husband for more than eleven years, and in that time I've cooked a lot of Indian food. I started out not knowing anything at all, but I like to flatter myself that I've gotten pretty good. Still, in all that time, a prize has eluded me. The prize of sambar. It seems simple – just a vegetable-lentil stew, flavored with sambar powder spice blend and the tang of tamarind. It's daily fare in millions of South Indian homes. Every home's sambar seems to taste different, and I love that. I'm OK with 'different,' and mine was decent, but just not... right. Not the way I wanted it to be.

 Awhile back we were staying with my in-laws, and my mother-in-law asked me to roast a combination of channa dal, dried coconut, and red chilies. Then she had me grind it into a paste and add it to the sambar.

Suddenly the clouds parted and a ray of light shone down from the heavens. As the angels started to sing, I thought, "I haven't been doing this. Maybe this is what I need to do."

"Amma," I asked, "Do you do this every time?" She answered something to the effect of, "You don't need to, but it's a nice touch." Translation, in my own mind: "Yes, this is why my sambar tastes so awesome."

In all my years of making sambar, this final step had somehow escaped me. You wouldn't believe how many things get lost in translation – and this one was a biggie. (Which proves my own personal philosophy: Doing is better than talking.)

Fast forward to Diwali Celebration 2010, ie: last Friday's dinner. In honor of the Festival of Lights, I decided to make onion sambar, adding the previously missing channa dal/coconut paste. Eureka! Rama and Sita return to Ayodhya, good triumphs over evil, and my sambar tastes like sambar! Happy belated Diwali!


Onion Sambar
First, start cooking the lentils:
1 cup toor dal*
4 cups water
Rinse the toor dal three times in a large sauce pan, then add four cups water. Bring to a boil, then lower heat to a simmer. Skim off any foam that appears. Cook for approximately 40 minutes, or until the lentils are very soft and falling apart. Add water if the lentils look like they are drying out. When lentils are done cooking, take a wire whisk and whisk them into a rough puree.

While the lentils are cooking, start cooking the onion:
2 tablespoons coconut oil
2 teaspoons black mustard seeds
1 Thai green chili, halved lengthwise (or about ¼ of a jalapeno)
2 teaspoons sambar powder**
¼ teaspoon asafoetida
one onion, cut in half crosswise, then cut lengthwise along the grain into pieces slightly less than an inch wide
2½ - 3 cups water
1 slightly heaping teaspoon of tamarind concentrate
salt
Heat the coconut oil, mustard seeds, and green chili in a large heavy-bottomed pot until the mustard seeds turn grey and start sputtering out of the pot. Turn down the heat, add the sambar powder and asafoetida, and stir for a few seconds. Add the onion and stir to coat with the spices. Cook the onion for a few minutes, then add the water to cover the onions well. Dissolve the tamarind concentrate in a bit of water, and add it to the onion mixture. Add some salt, and bring to a boil. Once the mixture starts to boil, lower the heat and simmer, covered, until the onions are soft, about 20 minutes.

While your onions are simmering, make the coconut/channa dal paste:
2 teaspoons coconut oil (plus 1 additional tablespoon, for finishing)
2 dried red chilies (small, like Thai chilies)***
3 tablespoons dried flaked coconut
3 tablespoons channa dal****
small amount of water

Heat the 2 teaspoons of oil in a small skillet (reserve the 1 tablespoon for the end), then add the chilies, coconut, and channa dal. Roast on medium heat until the coconut is light brown. Take care not to scorch it. Puree the coconut/dal mixture in a blender with a small amount of water to make a paste.

When the separate elements are done, you just need to put them together. Add the whisked toor dal to the cooked onions (reserving a small amount of plain dal for your kids if necessary), then add the coconut/channa dal paste, and mix. Add more salt if necessary. Add the final tablespoon of coconut oil, and simmer the sambar for a few minutes. That's it. Serve with rice and a nice vegetable curry.

*You will most likely need to go to an Indian grocery for toor dal, though an upscale grocery like Whole Foods, or natural foods grocery may carry it. The Indian store will be the least expensive.

**Sambar powder can also be found at your local Indian store. My mother-in-law makes her own, and gives me a huge jar periodically. However, I recently ran out and ended up buying some from the store. I used Priyom brand, which contains red chili, coriander, turmeric, fenugreek, asafoetida, pepper, curry leaves, urad dal, gram dal, and salt. It tasted authentic to me.

***Go to, you guessed it, the Indian grocery store. Lots of dried red chilies there.

****Did I mention you really should get yourself on over to the Indian grocery store?

Reforming Bad Apples: Roasted Applesauce

You know the saying, “One bad apple spoils the whole barrel”? That saying didn’t just come out of nowhere – the ethylene gas given off by the overripe apple signals the other apples to ripen. (Pretty amazing that they can do that, don't you think?) So you can imagine my dismay when, during our recent family apple picking outing, I realized the four-year-old had been picking the windfalls up from the ground and putting them in our bag, along with all the good apples.

“Stop! Don’t do that!” Her hand froze, hovering with worm-eaten apple just above the bag. “We can only use the apples from the trees. Those apples on the ground are bad.”

“OK, Mommy.”

“Did you put any others in there?”

“No,” she said, smiling up at me angelically.

I rooted through the bag, and pulled out as many wormy, faintly rotting apples as I could find.

I realized I probably didn’t find them all a couple weeks later, when I smelled the tell-tale fragrance of apple cider vinegar. I inspected the apples one by one, found three or four fully rotten ones dribbling their vinegary juices all over the place, and determined the others were now prematurely past their prime, mealy and definitely not vibrant in flavor.

Bummer. Only one thing to do with them: Make applesauce.

The great thing about applesauce is that you can use less than stellar apples, and no one will ever know the difference. This is because applesauce gives you the freedom to doctor up your apples, and remedy whatever ails them, through the judicious addition of lemon juice, sugar or honey, and spices.

I decided to try roasting my apples rather than boiling them, first and foremost because I am lazy and don’t want to hover over a pot of boiling apples, much less peel and slice them. But I also know that roasting tends to concentrate flavor and sweetness, and decided that this was the way to go with my very unflavorful, unsweet apples. Whatever flavor there was would be intensified.

Anyhow, it worked. The roasting process gave the sauce a faintly caramel taste, and the texture was fantastic – very thick and a bit lumpy. (I don’t like my applesauce to be watery and smooth like baby food.) And you don’t have to peel or slice anything! Woohoo! Nor do you you need a food mill! Double woohoo!

 Roasted Applesauce
A little note: If you are going to add a little spice to your applesauce, why not forego the usual cinnamon, and try a small amount of Chinese five-spice powder instead? The spices in it work really well with apples, and if you just do a small amount, it will have a lovely, subtle effect, and everyone will say your applesauce tastes great, and wonder what the heck you did to it. (My five-spice powder has cinnamon, star anise, fennel, ginger, cloves, white pepper, and licorice root, which technically is seven spices, but who's counting? Different brands will be slightly different, but still good. The traditional version has Szechuan peppercorns, star anise, cloves, cinnamon, and fennel. Just five. )

Oil, for greasing pan
8 apples, halved and cored (keep skins on)
Sugar, or honey, to taste
Lemon juice, to taste
Dash of salt
¼ to ½ teaspoon Chinese five-spice powder (Taste first before adding more. A little goes a long way.)

Preheat oven to 375°. Grease a large sheet pan with a neutral-flavored oil. Halve lengthwise and core eight apples, leaving the skins intact. Arrange the apples cut side down on your baking sheet, and place the sheet on the rack in the center of your oven. Bake for approximately 45 minutes, or long enough for the apples to start browning on the cut surface. (This is the delicious caramelization that you want.)

Remove apples from oven, and using an offset spatula remove them from the pan onto a plate to let them cool. Once apples have cooled, use a large spoon to scrape the apples out of their skins into a bowl. Mash the apples with a fork to desired texture. Add and mix in sugar or honey, lemon juice (usually just a generous squirt is needed), salt, and five-spice powder as desired. Or just be normal and add cinnamon – your sauce will fail to be anything but delicious. This sauce freezes well.