Braised Red Cabbage with Apples and Caraway Seeds

Adapted from The All New Joy of Cooking, via Orangette.

I know a lot of you might shrink back in a weird fear of braised cabbage. I did at first too, but this is good. Like, really good. I can't wait to make some more of it. Tart and sweet, you'll never look back.

Ingredients

2 Tbs olive oil
3 Tbs finely chopped red onion
1 small head red cabbage (about two pounds), quartered, cored, and very thinly sliced
1 large Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored, and coarsely grated
3 Tbs apple cider vinegar
2 Tbs honey
1 tsp salt
1/8 to ¼ tsp caraway seeds


Directions

Heat oil in a large skillet or Dutch oven over medium-low heat. Add onions and cook until translucent and slightly golden. Add cabbage, apple, vinegar, honey, salt, and caraway seeds. Cover pan and cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until the cabbage is very soft but not falling apart, about an hour.

Serves roughly 4. Delicious warm, at room temperature, or cold. Enjoy!

Savoy Cabbage Gratin

Adapted from Orangette and Molly Stevens book, All About Braising

Ingredients:

3 Tbsp. unsalted butter
1 Savoy cabbage, quartered, cored, and sliced into ½-inch-wide shreds
1 bunch scallions, white and green parts, sliced into ½-inch-wide pieces (I actually used a yellow onion here as I had no green onions on hand...worked just fine)
Kosher salt
1 ¾ cups good chicken stock
1 ripe Saint-Marcellin cheese (again...I just used a good-sized mixture of Parmesan and Havarti which was fantastic)

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly butter a large (roughly 10”x 14”) gratin dish, or another dish of similar size.

Melt the butter in a large skillet or pot over medium-high heat. Add the cabbage and onion/scallions, season with salt, and cook, stirring, until the cabbage is wilted and just beginning to brown, which takes anywhere from 10 minutes to 15 minutes. Add the stock, bring to a simmer, and cook, stirring occasionally, for a few minutes.

Transfer everything in the pot into the prepared gratin dish. Cover tightly with foil, and bake for 45 minutes (this is where the braising comes in). Remove the foil, and continue to bake until the liquid is mostly evaporated, about 20 minutes more. Then remove the dish from the oven. Cut the cheese into small lumps and scatter it over the cabbage. Increase the oven temperature to 375°F, return the dish to the oven, and cook until the cheese is thoroughly melted and/or bubbling, about 10 minutes.

You can serve this as a side dish but i say grab some bread and a glass of wine, and call it a day.