Miriam’s Kitchen – Sweet & Sour Cabbage.

Well, cooking is not new to me. I have at least 3 shelves lined with cookbooks, kosher and not. But blogging about it – this is definitely the first.

The idea was actually in the air bouncing off between me and my “run-away” living all the way across the country for almost 9 months now. Maybe this will be more than just class entries, but another way of connecting us.

In any case, I am almost done with this amazing book. It reminds me so much of my own grandmother, whom I, of course, took for granted. She was the best cook I knew, that’s for sure.

So for my first assignment – to make some Jewish dish I have never made before and blog about it, I decided to make something we don’t really like much in my family and took a sweet and sour cabbage recipe.

Here’s the list of stuff I needed:
1 red cabbage (about 5 lb)
½ cup margarine or olive oil
Salt & Pepper
½ Teaspoon nutmeg
3 Tablespoons white vinegar
3 Tablespoons brown sugar
½ cup white raisins
½ cup dried currants
2 cups peels & diced apples

Well, the first thing I have to tell you is that I never go exactly by the recipe. So this time was no different. First, I could not find kosher dried currants (of course!). Never mind – I used a bit of fresh cranberries. I buy these in large quantities. They usually show up in our stores right after Sukkoth and I throw the bags in the freezer to use all year round. My baby (meaning my almost 19 year-old) likes to eat them straight from the bag – no sugar added.
Next I decided I don’t want to use so much sugar. So I used a little less.
Next I thought why not add a bit of chopped mixed nuts that were left over after the strawberry cake that I made for my birthday the same day? So in the nuts went.
Lastly, I poured a little red wine.

The only pain in this recipe for a kosher person is to check/clean the cabbage. I hate buying pre-shredded cabbage. It is usually too thick and dry. So like my rebetzin taught me, I cut the cabbage into chunks, spread the leaves, wash it, and put it into a huge bowl of very salty water for a while. Then I carefully pick the cabbage up and wash it again under running water.

And then I shred it very thin.
Cabbage goes into the heated oil (I don’t like margarine) with salt, pepper & nutmeg.
After a minute I added everything else and in 5 minutes or so turned the heat down. The cabbage then simmered for about an hour.

Surprisingly enough it turned out pretty good. Even my mom said so :-)