April 1, 2020

Cabbage, cabbage and cabbage

Hello,

Less frequent grocery shopping means less frequent fresh greens. (At least until my windowsill celery garden can be harvested.) But there's one stalwart vegetable that keeps well in the fridge, can be eaten raw or cooked, is budget-friendly and super nutritious and goes a long, long way. Cabbage, my friends, will never let you down.

As a one-time Russian major, that's the direction I go in when I'm looking for ways to prep cabbage. And my go-to Russian (really, pan-USSR) cookbook, Please to the Table by Anya von Bremzen, is a classic. First published in 1990, it is shockingly still available to purchase and is a pleasingly retro time-warp to that last moment before the Soviet Union collapsed, and to a pre-internet era that is becoming more and more difficult to conjure up in my mind.

Naturally, there is no e-book version of Please to the Table, so if you want a copy you'll have to order it. But von Bremzen's more recent memoir, Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking, is available electronically, even through the Toronto Public Library, and I highly recommend it.

In the meantime, here are two recipes from Please to the Table that I've made with cabbage recently. One is easy and relatively fast, one is a lot more work but worth it. Enjoy!

Cabbage Baked with Feta

This recipe is cited as "Moldavian", aka Moldovan. The full recipe makes a lot, so I often halve it or more. I think it's safe to think of 1/8 of a medium cabbage as a single portion, so math it up from that. It makes good leftovers, it's just a matter of how many days in a row you want to eat cabbage.

I am writing "unsalted butter" because that's what's in the recipe but honestly, I never have unsalted butter in my house. I also generally leave out the breadcrumbs because that is also something I never have around, and I skip the step with drizzled butter on top of everything. And, you can use plain yogurt instead of sour cream, I do.

Ingredients

• 1 firm head green cabbage (about 2 1/2 pounds), cored and finely slivered
• 3 tbsp butter
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 2 large eggs
• 1/4 cup finely chopped fresh dill (optional)
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 1 1/3 cups finely crumbled or grated feta cheese, preferably Bulgarian
• 1/2 cup unflavoured, coarse, dry breadcrumbs
• 1 to 2 tsp sweet Hungarian paprika
• 5 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

Directions

1. Blanch the cabbage in boiling water for 2 minutes. Drain and pat dry with a linen or cotton (not terry cloth) kitchen towel.

2. Heat the 3 tbsp butter and the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the cabbage and sauté, stirring and tossing frequently, until the cabbage is nicely browned, 15 to 20 minutes. Cool the cabbage until it is easy to handle.

3. Preheat the oven to 375F.

4. In a small bowl, whisk together the sour cream and eggs. Mix thoroughly with the cabbage. Add dill, if desired, and season to taste with salt and pepper. Transfer to the mixture to an earthenware casserole dish.

5. Combine the feta with the breadcrumbs. Sprinkle the mixture over the cabbage. Sprinkle with paprika and melted butter and bake until bubbly and the top is browned, about 15 minutes.

Cabbage Pirozhki

Pirozhki technically means little pies, and they are pastries, almost like buns, with a filling, typically meat, cabbage or potato. (The singular is pirozhok, and the stress is on the last syllable: piroZHOK, pirozhKI.) The summer I lived in Russia I used to buy these all the time from street vendors. They were very appropriate to a grad student food budget!

I had always wanted to make them, but this weekend was my first time. This recipe calls for three-inch pastry circles, which makes little bite-size pastries. If you want a higher ratio of filling to pastry, you can make them bigger. I rolled each section of dough out twice to cut out circles, and then used the last chunks to make one big rustic-style pie with the last of the filling, to look something like this. Honestly, I think that way is my preference if you're serving this for dinner. (And it is a lot less work.) If you want a bunch of buns in the freezer that you can pull out one by one for a snack or side dish, go with the little ones.

Both the filling and the dough can be made ahead of time to avoid a marathon kitchen session. It took me about 2 1/2 hours to get through everything (though admittedly I was Facetiming a friend at the same time).

Ingredients

• 1 recipe Quick Yeast Dough, or 2 sheets commercial puff pastry
• 1 recipe Cabbage Filling
• 1 large egg yolk, beaten with 1 tsp milk

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Lightly butter two large baking sheets.

2. Divide the dough or pastry into three pieces. Cover and refrigerate the pieces you're not working with. On a floured surface with a floured rolling pin, roll out one piece of dough to a thickness of slightly more than 1/8 inch. With a 3-inch cookie cutter or top of a drinking glass, cut out rounds from the dough. Flatten each round slightly between your fingers and place a heaping teaspoon of the filling in the middle. Fold the edges up so they meet in the centre and press together firmly to seal. Press the sealed edges lightly against the pirozhok and pat into an oval shape. Place on the baking sheet, seam side down.

3. Repeat with the remaining dough and filling, gathering the leftover scraps of dough into a ball, reroll, and cut out as many more rounds as possible. Space the pirozhki 1 inch apart on the baking sheet. (If all the pirozhki don't fit on two baking sheets, bake them in batches, keeping the unbaked ones refrigerated.) Brush with the egg wash and bake in the middle of the oven until golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes. Serve warm.

Makes about 45 to 50 pirozhki.

Cabbage Filling

If you have a food processor with a grater attachment, I recommend using it to chop the cabbage.

Ingredients

• 1 head (about 3 pounds) green cabbage, finely chopped
• 3 tbsp unsalted butter
• 3 tbsp vegetable oil
• 4 hard-cooked eggs, finely chopped
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh dill (optional)

Directions

1. Blanch the cabbage in boiling salted water for 3 minutes. Drain well and squeeze the cabbage to remove any excess liquid.

2. Heat the butter and oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the cabbage and cook, stirring, until soft and coloured, 15 to 20 minutes.

3. Remove from the heat and stir in the remaining ingredients. Cool to room temperature.

Quick Yeast Dough

Due to the Great Flour Shortage of March 2020, I made mine using red fife flour procured from Brødflour via Foodora. It turned out well!

Ingredients

• 1 package active dry yeast
• 2 tsp sugar
• 2/3 cup lukewarm milk
• 1 cup unsalted butter, melted, and cooled to lukewarm
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 1/4 to 3 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

Directions

1. In a large bowl, combine the yeast, sugar and milk and let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes.

2. Add the butter, egg and salt to the yeast mixture and mix well with a wooden spoon.

3. Stir in 3 1/4 cups flour, 1 cup at a time, stirring well after each addition.

4. Transfer the dough to a floured surface and knead gently until you have smooth, rather loose dough, about 3 minutes, adding just enough of the remaining flour to prevent sticking. Shape into a ball, cover with a linen or cotton (not terry cloth) kitchen towel and let stand for 10 minutes.

The dough is now ready to use. You can refrigerate it for up to 24 hours.

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