Talking cabbage headsEvery once in a while, I am accused of telepathy. Readers will write in to share that a newsletter was particularly timely, that I read their mind, that they just bought that ingredient, that they saved that exact recipe yesterday. I love when we’re in sync. (Jinx, I owe you a Coke.) And so imagine my delight when, on the very day I bought a head of cabbage and thought to myself, Man, I haven’t cooked cabbage in a while — I freaking love cabbage, I received the following email from a reader named Kate:
Kate, you psychic! Go buy a Powerball ticket. It is, as Kate’s community-supported agriculture box suggests, peak cabbage season, and there’s no better time to grab a head. Parm it: Part of an easy main-course meal, you say? Hetty Lui McKinnon’s cabbage Parm is up to the task, blanketing the hearty vegetable with tomato sauce and mozzarella as you might some thinly pounded chicken. And it is likely to work with whatever arrived in your C.S.A. (or what’s on sale at the grocery store): “Experiment with different varieties of cabbage,” Hetty writes. “Conical Caraflex will deliver a sweeter finish, while savoy, with its looser leaf structure, has a milder flavor and can cook in less time.” Cabbage ParmWrap it: If you have a large savoy cabbage, you could take a project-cooking approach, with Yotam Ottolenghi’s cabbage rolls with walnuts and sour cream. They’re a satisfying centerpiece that you can prepare the day before, filling the leaves with the mixture of onions, nuts, spices and herbs and baking them in advance. Just hold off on the sauce until you’re ready to eat. Stir-fry it: This is my preferred weeknight preparation, and I regularly toss ribbons of green cabbage in a hot pan until they’re lightly charred and supple. Pair them with protein, as Kay Chun does in her recipe for tofu and cabbage stir-fry with basil, and you’ll find it shockingly easy to go through a pound of the stuff with a single 25-minute dish. And speaking of basil … Pesto (and soup) it: Replace it, with cabbage and parsley! A savoy cabbage works overtime in Yotam’s five-star winter minestrone with cabbage pesto, lending sweetness to the soup — which is rounded out with orzo, black beans and plenty more vegetables — and body to a sauce to dab over it. But if a green cabbage is what’s on hand, well, Lidey Heuck’s popular cabbage soup is in order. Char it: This is cabbage at its best, as far as I’m concerned, whether seared on the stove, as in Andy Baraghani’s charred cabbage with miso browned butter, or frizzled in the oven, as in Nisha Vora’s deeply roasted cabbage with peanut crunch. Nisha pairs her cabbage with nuts and seeds bound by tacky bits of chopped dates and perked up with chopped green chile, lime and a finish of tangy tamarind. I have a feeling you’ll want to use that topping elsewhere in your cooking. “The peanut crunch is out of this world!” wrote a reader, who said the dish had been the surprise favorite of her book club potluck. “I can see myself putting that on so many things — roast cauliflower and butternut squash, grilled broccoli.” Cutting a cabbage into wedges and cooking it until the edges are burnt and the inner leaves are softened to near translucence just feels luxurious, a stately spin on a vegetable so often associated with cucina povera. I’d eat either of these charred dishes for dinner, with little more than a bowl of rice, and work quickly to replace the head of cabbage in my fridge.
Tofu and Cabbage Stir-Fry With Basil
Winter Minestrone With Cabbage Pesto
Deeply Roasted Cabbage With Peanut CrunchOne More Thing!Still thinking about a comment featured in this collection of heartwarming (and heartbreaking) comments about love and food, mined from NYT Cooking recipes:
Happy almost Valentine’s Day, I love you! Thanks for reading, and see you next week. Email us at theveggie@nytimes.com. Newsletters are archived here. Reach out to my colleagues at cookingcare@nytimes.com if you have questions about your account.
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