Renée’s Red Cabbage

Red Cabbage is one of those super foods that every trendy publication tells you you should eat more of. Advice is easy. Making that advice a reality is more difficult. Renée's Red Cabbage is a quick and easy recipe, which you'll love to have in your repertoire. It is as tasty as it is easy. My toddler even loves eating this recipe!

Cabbage is tough, though. I understand. In the wild, cabbage has a bitter, even skunky, flavor and a tough texture. Like most things, these essential attributes of cabbage are not inherently bad. You can fight the cabbage and lose, or you can own it and turn the flavor and texture into features, instead of flaws. 

The secret to cabbage in general is to find seasonings that blend with the skunk flavor. If you're like me and you grew up in the suburbs, you've smelled the aftermath of a skunk scare on the road. There are two kinds of people in the world, in my opinion: people who privately like the skunk smell, and people who will admit that they like it. Yes it's a pungent and overpowering smell. But you're got to admit there is something oddly good and potentially delicious about it.

Which is not to say that Renée's Red Cabbage tastes like skunk. It most certainly does not! It has a tangy and robust flavor, and if you don't overcook it, a great texture, that is both springy and delicate. It will break apart in your mouth easily, but will not feel mushy. Texture is what makes this simple recipe most difficult to master. As you learn it, you will find just the right balance to get the perfect texture.

There are a few flavor elements that combine to make "the secret" to the great taste in this recipe. The grated apple, of course, adds a bit of sweetness. The vinegar bath at the end not only preserves the beautiful color of this dish, but it adds a tangy flavor. Rounding out this juxtaposition of sweet, sour, is the robust flavor of ground cloves. If you flavor the dish correctly, you won't be able to tell that there are cloves in it, and you may confuse the clove taste for the underlying cabbage essence itself

As with most of Mãe's recipes, you can make Reneé's Red Cabbage with or without the pressure cooker. I'm posting the recipe as a regular skillet recipe, because it is just too easy to overcook the cabbage in the pressure cooker. I want everyone in the world to see and taste the beauty of this cabbage, and if you overcook it, you will be annoyed and wonder what kind of crazy recipe I posted.

If you cook the cabbage in a regular frying pan, you can monitor the texture, which you can't do with a pressure cooker, obviously. If you stick the cabbage with a fork, it should feel about as firm as a fully steamed broccoli stalk when you turn the heat off. If you're feeling lucky today, just go ahead and try it in the pressure cooker! Cook on medium pressure for about three minutes, and allow the pan to depressurize normally.