Braised Cabbage and Carrots with Caraway seed

Beautiful, beautiful cabbage.

Braised cabbage makes for a lovely vegetable side dish. Tender, sweet and caramelized, it takes only minutes to prepare, requires very little last-minute attention, and comes to the table looking impressive.

The lowly cabbage is an often under-appreciated vegetable in this country, unless of course one is making coleslaw. If it’s not on your mental list of routine vegetable sides, you should give it a chance. It’s high in vitamins and fiber, fights chronic inflammation, and is high in antioxidants. It’s also sweet and delicious. And it’s cheap.

This recipe is a great way to introduce it to your family and friends.

Ingredients:

• 1 green cabbage (about 2 pounds)

• 1 large white or yellow onion, peeled and thickly sliced into ¼” half moons

• 3 large carrots, peeled and cut on the bias into ¾ inch slices

• ½ cup chicken stock, no-chicken stock, or vegetable stock

• grated rind (orange part only, not the white pith) and juice of one orange

• ½ teaspoon smoked paprika

• 1 tablespoon garlic, minced

• 1/3 cup melted butter or a flavorful nut oil, such as walnut. If there’s a nut allergy at your table, go for a good extra virgin olive oil (plus extra fat for greasing the pan)

• kosher salt

• A few grinds of the pepper mill

• 1 teaspoon caraway seeds

• finely chopped parsley for garnish

• Optional: a sprinkling of crushed red pepper or Aleppo pepper flakes

Method:

You’ll need a rectangular baking dish, approximately 13” X 9”. I love my le Creuset, but any oven-safe ceramic will do the job. This is a very good inexpensive one, if you don’t want to invest in a le Creuset. A pyrex dish would work, as well.

• Preheat the oven to 325°. Low and slow gives the cabbage time to show off its sweetness and become tender.

• Grease your baking dish with whatever fat you’re going to use in making the recipe.

• Set the cabbage on a heavy cutting board and use (preferably) a heavy chef’s knife to trim the stem. Remove any unpleasant-looking outer leaves if necessary.

• Cut the cabbage in half, lengthwise, through the core. Then cut each half into 4—6 wedges. Don’t remove the core; you want it to hold your wedges together. Besides, that hard, tough core becomes meltingly sweet when it’s thoroughly cooked. You could cut your cabbage into smaller wedges for serving individual slices. They may fall apart somewhat, but that doesn’t really matter.

• Lay the cabbage wedges out flat in the pan, in one layer. It’s fine if they overlap.

• Scatter the carrot and onion slices around the wedges.

• Combine the orange juice, the grated orange rind and the garlic with the stock and stir to blend them together.

• Pour the stock over the cabbage immediately, before the garlic and rind settle out.

• Drizzle with melted butter or oil. Feel free to add a little more if you think it needs it. I tend to be very generous.

• Sprinkle liberally with kosher salt—cabbage loves salt. Then grind as much black pepper as you like over the top. Also sprinkle on the smoked paprika.

• Sprinkle on the caraway seeds. Again, the measurement is not exact.

• If your baking dish has a cover, cover it. If not, cover it tightly with aluminum foil.

• Braise the cabbage and carrots in the oven for 1 ½  hours. Then remove the cover and test the core of a cabbage slice with a fork. The fork should slip in easily. If it’s not yet tender, re-cover the pan and roast a bit longer, checking after 15 minute intervals.

• The dish can be made in advance up to this point.

• Raise the heat to 425°. Remove the cover and bake it for approximately 15 minutes longer, until it’s nicely browned on top. If you’ve made it in advance and kept it in the fridge, it could take a bit longer to re-heat.

• Bring your lovely baking dish to the table and serve.

Did you make it? Was it fabulous?