Friday 29 March 2013

Sweet and Sour Red cabbage and apple on Good Friday...again...

 Recipe time again I was thinking? This is a lovely standby, the ingredients keep well so they can be in your fridge over  a week and it can be a side dish or the main meal, depending on how much of it you eat.
And there's two fruit and two veg in it so 4 of your 5 -a-day?! My kids just love it too which is another bonus.
 You'll need a red cabbage( mine was 536g a small one) some honey or dark brown muscovado sugar, two Bramley apples,an onion, some oil,some white wine vineger or cider vinegar, some raisins or sultanas and a dash of red wine if you have it, cinnamon too is optional. Mine is a variation on a WW recipe from a book called Fast and Fabulous which I bought in Calgary, Canada in March 1984.
 As it happens I first tried this recipe on Good Friday of 1984 which happened to be 20th April that year.
It received a 4 ''star'' score at the time, these days we score new recipes out of 10. I think then it was out of 5. Amazing though eh? 29 years ago........
 There's a bit of prep first: chop onion finely, peel and and chop apples and shred  the cabbage finely ...
 Onions sautee-ing in pan with tablespoon of olive oil.
 Apples are about to be added, I add two hand-fulls first and then add the rest a bit later so you have some in chunks and some as ''mush''.
 Red cabbage looks so good like this doesn't it? Quite a striking design.
 Squiggly concentric patterns...

 Ok so the apple and onion are siftening nicely - for a few minutes.
 Then add all the rest of the ingredients:
All the shredded cabbage, 70-90 g of raisins, 2 tablespoons of runny honey or brown sugar heaped, a tablespoon of vinegar ( wine or cider) and a dash - say 70 ml- of white wine ( or red) .
 Cook on high heat and stir then put a lid on and let the cabbage cook until soft.
You may need to add more liquid , in which case only add more wine and you may need some more sugar/honey so do taste it regularly.
The raisins/sultanas should lump up nicely in the heat and the juices and the apple cooks and turns red/pink.
The vinegar adds a sharp touch but the sweetness takes the edge off .
After 5- 10 minutes add the rest of the apple and possibly more raisins, keep checking the taste.
 Then let simmer until tender and all the flavours have merged. You can also add mixed spice or cinnamon at this point. I had such a lovely time cooking , I was playing religious songs and hymns sung by the St Joseph's Children's choir  on my new i-pad and it was just heavenly. Serene and peaceful and quite the opposite from the row my two girls had had earlier. Teenage girls and hormones! And on Good Friday too.
This is how much cabbage was left over out of the 536g one, I fed it to the dogs, they love it raw.

 This is how it looks when it's ready to serve. We had it with turkey in a cream and mushroom sauce and baby potatoes.
 My mum always said that the biggest compliment to her cooking was an empty plate or two: so here they are:
 The red cabbage keeps for a day in the fridge and if possible tastes even better cold the next day...
I do like ours very soft and very''appley/raisiney.''
 Remember that Riva cowl? I had to take Miss Y to a party in MK today so I popped into John Lewis and managed to buy one more ball of that colour...HOORAY! The very last one they said, a lovely lady found it in their storage area. Lucky I asked really as I had kind of given up when they didn't have it in London.
 Ta dah! This one is bigger and looser and can be worn as a hood too, as I will show in the next post.
It weighs 82g so I have a little leftover.
 What are those chain lengths for? Wait and SEE!
 That was the back.
 Been ''playing'' with my new steam machine/toy: Yesterday I steamed ALL the hard floors in the house and this evening I tackled a 20 year old fridge , scrubbed with bleach, steamed to kill germs and remove excess ice and limescale and then rubbed with fresh lemons to smell: simply delicious!
Be
That was my bit of Spring cleaning for the day. SPRING? Where? When? In MK at 1 pm today it was SNOWING! And the very pretty cross country drive showed us plenty of WHITE fields and hills and some tiny lambs which looked newborn and darling but I do worry how cold they'll be feeling! I hope the farmer brings them in at night?
We walked the dogs on the Bluff as we call it and to my surprise the path through the wood was still all white too and it was sooo cold at 4:30 pm that we cut it short and came home before I lost the feeling in my toes as well as my fingers! Brrrrrrrr JJ made a fire and watched TV  after the dinner while I tackled this fridge.
Time for bed, good night and I hope you have had a happy. contented and peaceful Holy Friday .
Best wishes to you and yours this Easter time.

No comments:

Post a Comment