Braised Cabbage- cold weather comfort food

I read a lot of food blogs daily. I always seem to stumble upon more great food sites that give me ideas and tons of recipes to try. Amateur Gourmet (written by Adam Roberts) is one of my favorites and I've tried many of the recipes from the blog (like this, this one here, and oh yea..this one too).

A few weeks ago I read a post where the Amateur Gourmet made braised cabbage. It sounded so good and so cozy and comfort food-y that I had to try it. And it was so good that I made it again and tweaked it a bit to make it more "Foodie In Training" and less "Amateur Gourmet".

I also wanted to attempt the recipe because at Mulvins (the local farm stand in Sandusky), they have beautiful cabbages about the size of a small child. I swear, they are seriously about twice the size of your run-of-the-mill grocery store cabbage. Anytime I can try a new recipe AND buy locally..it's all systems go for this gal!

So, did I mention that this recipe is also super easy? It takes a bit of time in the oven, but other than that it's some chopping of vegetables and that's about it. Adam from Amateur Gourmet got this recipe from Molly Steven's "All About Braising" cookbook so my first attempt I followed his adaptation of the recipe:

Preheat the oven to 325

Oil a 9 x 13 baking dish (I just drizzled a bit olive oil into the baking dish)

Cut green cabbage (about 2 lbs.)* into 8 wedges

Lay wedges in dish

scatter one thickly sliced yellow onion over the top along with a carrot (I used 2 smaller carrots) cut into 1/4 inch rounds

drizzle 1/4 olive oil over the top and 1/4 cup chicken stock or water

season with salt, pepper and red pepper flakes

cover tightly with foil and in the oven it goes for 1 hour.

after an hour, remove cover and flip wedges and recover for another hour

Once cabbage is tender, remove foil and boost heat up to 400 degrees for about 15 minutes (or until top is browned and crispy.

Season lightly with salt and it's ready to serve!!

*Erin used about a 4 lb. cabbage..seriously it was huge

My first time making it I decided to add two cloves of garlic (I'm beginning to think I can't make a dish with adding a little bit of garlic..it make EVERYTHING good). I unpeeled it, but left the garlic whole more for flavor than texture or bite.

My second time making the braised cabbage it was a windy, blustery day- just perfect for a warm and comforting meal. THIS time I decided to turn up the volume and add some different ingredients. I had some fennel in the fridge, so I coarsely chopped the bulb and scattered that on top of the cabbage. I also didn't have any yellow onion so I coarsely chopped half a medium red onion and scattered that on top as well. The addition of the fennel was key, the flavor was great and it worked really well with the cabbage. And the red onion also was really nice because it turned a bit sweet and was a nice compliment to the spice from the red pepper flakes.

The dish has been a hit both times so I recommend you try it. It's great when it's bitterly cold out with a bowl of hot soup, but I think it would be good in any weather. Happy braising!

Mario Batali was our Valentine

Cute shoes, right? Alright, I wore them to Law Prom last weekend but I thought the red shoes were Valentine's Day Post appropriate. :)
Instead of getting all dressed up and going out for a fancy Valentine's dinner, we decided to choose a few recipes and make a great dinner. And that we did. We didn't start cooking until late in the evening but it was so worth it. We weren't sure where to get a good cut of veal, I wasn't sure if Kroger or Bigg's would carry it, so we decided to go to Fresh Market. Fresh Market is a very upscale grocery store, that I happen to love. It is not a place where we do our regular grocery shopping, we tried to do that once and ended up spending $6 on Kraft Grated Parmesan Cheese. Anyway, I like it because it is a true departure from your normal supermarket, they play classical music, they have really high quality ingredients, an awesome meat and seafood selection and interesting things like making your own peanut or almond butter. We were lucky to get the last few cuts of veal and the rest of our ingredients for our fabulous dinner.

Here is the menu:
-Saltimbocca alla Romana (Roman-Style Veal Cutlets with Sage)
- Braised Baby Fennel
- Carmelized Onion Toasts
It was absolutely delicious. Just as good as any restaurant meal we could have had. Ryan was in charge of the veal so I will let him explain.

Veal Saltimbocca. The First time I remember having the dish was when I was 19 years old in St. Louis. I was visiting some friends during my first year of college and we went out to a nice Italian restaurant--- I can't remember the name. It was a nice piece of veal with a light sauce, but then there was the kicker- it was stuffed with prosciutto and cheese. It might have been the single most delicious bite I ever had up to that time. Since, I've had veal saltimbocca at many restaurants. Sometimes the prosciutto was on the outside, sometimes the veal was stuffed, sometimes there was cheese, sometimes not, but it was always a great dish.

This was the first time I tried to make veal saltimbocca. We bought some veal scallopini, and added some sage leaves. I think the sage was one of the keys to the dish, that and of course, the prosciutto. Prosciutto di Parma is a dried, cured ham, with a salty and spiced flavor. It is sliced razor, razor thin and is makes for the most incredible sandwiches ever made- and by sandwich, I don't mean the crap I have for lunch everyday- tasteless American honey ham, american processed to hell cheese and mustard on flimsy white bread- I mean real a real sandwich with prosciutto on some hard ciabatta or french bread, a little provolone cheese, maybe a roasted red pepper, and some salt and pepper. Really, prosciutto is one of my absolute favorite foods in the world.

Anyways, I ended up wrapping the veal, pounded pretty thin, and the sage in freshly sliced prosciutto. I lightly dredged them in seasoned flour and cooked them in a butter olive oil mixture for less than 5 minutes. I removed the veal and added some white wine to de-glaze, seasoning and some more oil to create a light sauce, in which I finished cooking the veal. The result was a salty veal dish packed with more flavor than one could think possible by the few ingredients used. Really, it was just sage, prosciutto, white wine, and veal plus some butter, oil, salt and pepper. The light wine sauce was just enough to cut the intense flavor of the meat. In all of Mario's brilliance, he suggested serving with lemon wedges. The lemon added a freshness and brightness that truly completed the dish. This was probably the best, most restaurant worthy meat course I have ever made. Mario Batali is awesome.

I (Erin) was in charge of the braised fennel and the carmelized onion toasts. Fennel is a very new ingredient for me to cook with so I had to do some research on how to cut and prepare it. This recipe called for just using the bulbs, so I chopped and julienned the fennel bulb and boiled it until fork tender in a large pot of water. In the mean time I started the carmelized onion toasts. I chopped 3 onions and sauteed them with 2 tablespoons of butter, salt and pepper and basil. The onions didn't carmelize very well because we did not use the recommended amount of butter (in an attempt to try and make it healthier). So the toasts were not as sweet as they could have been. To remedy that, we drizzled some balsamic vinegar over the finished toasts and it really added a lot of flavor.
To finish the fennel, I put 1/4 cup of olive oil in a saute pan and heated on low/medium heat. I added garlic, chopped anchovies and red pepper to the heated olive oil. Once the garlic was slowly cooking and the anchovies were starting to disolve, I added the fennel and let it saute for 5 minutes. When it was done, I added some fresh orange zest, salt and pepper and it was ready to serve.

The dinner was absolutely fabulous and the aromas in our small apartment were intoxicating. The fennel had a really great flavor, the natural anise (black licorice) taste of the fennel mixed with the orange and garlic flavor was a great combination. Everything was great and it turned out to be a great Valentine's Day Dinner!