Recipes with cabbage

Cabbage is the vegetable of kitchens that had to survive a winter. It grows in the cold, keeps for months without a cellar or a fridge, and costs almost nothing — which is why it turns up, in forms that look nothing alike, from Ukraine to Ethiopia and from Japan to Haiti.

Three treatments come back everywhere. The long cook, which turns it sweet and soft: Ukrainian borscht, Polish kapuśniak, garbure from the Landes and Tuscan ribollita all work it until it melts into the broth. The hard sear, which keeps the crunch: Sichuan cabbage with vinegar and chilli and Filipino lumpiang gulay give it a few minutes at most. And the sharp raw cure, which preserves it: Haitian pikliz and Réunionnais vegetable achards let vinegar and chilli do the biting.

The rule that avoids the sulphurous smell cabbage is blamed for: cook it fast and uncovered, or long and covered, never in between. It is the middle quarter of an hour that releases the sulphur compounds. For Ethiopian atakilt wat and gomen, give it plenty of time — they want it yielding, not crisp.