Not everybody in my household loves cabbage. But I do! I frequently make a one dish meal of cabbage, apples and pork chops, and everyone is pretty compliant about eating it. But cabbage as a side dish? Or plain cabbage as an accompaniment? Not so fast.
I came up with a solution last night, and it is a keeper. (Even the Doctor agreed to that, and he usually complains that cabbage makes the house smell bad for days.) I love the sweet flavor of fennel in the autumn, and wanted to make a more substantial dish of the cabbage than just steaming or sautéing usually yields.
I experimented with creaming a lot of vegetables this summer, as I was totally hooked on the Victory Garden cookbook, and just about every other recipe in that classic volume either calls for cream or is a creamed version. Then one of the NY Times food writers got me hooked on creamed corn (which I spiced up, of course.) I have also been trying to eat less meat (well, less food in general if you want to know the truth) but I find I am far more satisfied when I have a little bit of richness in my veggies rather than just plain steamed or roasted veggies.
So I made creamed cabbage. I had a beautiful tender cabbage from One Straw Farm, our local CSA. It was lovely in texture and flavor, it did not smell during cooking or afterward, and I served it with a gratin of eggplant and butternut squash.
Creamed Fennel Cabbage
1 teaspoon fennel seed
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon butter
1 green cabbage head, cored and cut into 4 or 8 wedges (depending on size)
½ cup chicken broth
½ to 1 cup half and half or cream.
Melt the butter in a large enough saucepan to hold the cabbage easily. Add fennel seed, salt and pepper and allow fennel seeds to toast until fragrant. Add cabbage to pan, and sauté briefly. Pour chicken broth and cream over and allow to simmer over low heat for about ½ hour, until cabbage is tender and soft. Remove cabbage from pan with a slotted spoon, then reduce cream and broth mixture until the sauce is thick and almost syrupy.
Pour the sauce over the cabbage and serve with a lean protein or another vegetable dish as a main course. Add more salt and coarse ground pepper to taste.
--Katie
