T.T.: German Red Cabbage

Last week, Jackie commented asking for the MiL's red cabbage recipe. 

Well, Jackie is in luck! The MiL's red cabbage recipe used to me mine, too, and so I can give you this recipe without asking the MiL to send it to me.

The original recipe came from a cookbook the MiL has. It's from a now-closed famous German restaurant in New York City called Luchow's. The restaurant opened in the 1880s and didn't close for a full century. The cookbook really evoked the atmosphere of the place, and every time I read the cookbook, I regretted that I never got to visit the actual restaurant. Just click on that link up there and feast your eyes on the illustration of the interior.

Anyway.

I found the original recipe online here. 

I used to double this recipe to make five quarts of red cabbage every year when we lived at Blackrock, and I would freeze it in quart jars. One of my favorite winter meals was kielbasa with German red cabbage and mashed potatoes. I can't get good kielbasa now, so I haven't even bothered making the cabbage in some time, but it really is delicious.

I made several changes to the original recipe when I used to make it, so I suppose you could say this is a new recipe.

German Red Cabbage

Ingredients

1 medium-sized red cabbage

2 tart apples (optional, but delicious)

2 tbsp. chicken fat (use it if you have it!) or vegetable oil

1 medium-sized onion, sliced

2 cups water

1/2 cup red wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar

1/3 cup sugar 

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

2 cloves

1 bay leaf

Method

1) Wash and core cabbage. Cut into about 1/4-inch ribbons.

2) If using apples, wash, peel, core, and dice.

3) Heat fat in large pot. Saute onion and apples until soft.

4) Add everything else and bring to a boil.

5) Cover and simmer about 45 minutes.

6) Uncover and simmer another 30 minutes, to make the cabbage completely tender and to reduce liquid a bit. The original recipe called for a lot more water and then flour to thicken it, but I always just started with less water, no flour, and reduced the liquid by simmering more.

7) Taste and adjust salt, sugar, and vinegar as needed. It shouldn't be noticeably sweet or noticeably acid. You're looking for a balance between the sweet and acid, sort of like with this coleslaw. 

As I mentioned, I haven't actually made this in about five years, so I might be forgetting something, but I think this was pretty much what I did.

Also, if you decide to make this in quantity as I used to do, I would recommend freezing it rather than canning it. I canned it one year, but I found it had an over-cooked taste that way. And anyway, I'm not 100% sure this recipe has enough vinegar in it to make it safe for water-bath canning, so freezing is the way to go.

Prost!