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Cabbage with Bacon (recipe w/attitude)

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DrG:


Easy, tastes great; hard to screw up, lends itself well to variations, very well suited for culinary retardates.

Assume a medium to large head of plain old green cabbage. Remove the gross and dirty outer leaves, but only a few of these, it’s not an artichoke. Remove the core (that’s the part with the stem).

Use a frying pan with deep sides or a larger sauce pan. It has to hold all the cabbage.

1. Fry up a mess of bacon – enough to clog at least two arteries.

2. Place the strips on paper towels to drain.

3. Wait until the great deal of fat in the pan has cooled a bit and pour it into a receptacle, like an empty tin. Do NOT throw it down the drain whether you have a disposal or not because I am sick and tired of snaking drains.

4. Cut up (diced) ~ ½ of a green pepper. Toss it in the pan and start to fry it gently – enough heat to sizzle a bit. There should still be enough bacon fat in the pan to make this easy.

5. Cut up (diced) a medium onion (sweet, like a Vidalia works best). Toss it in the pan. If you really did throw out all of the bacon grease, then you can add a tad of olive oil so that the peppers and onions sauté nicely.

6. Cut up the cabbage into chunks, do not dice it and do not cut it into such small pieces that you end up with cabbage soup.

7. Once the onions are clear, add all of the cabbage and mix. At this point add salt and black pepper and cover. Watch this carefully so that it is not burning. The cabbage will release water and you will be steaming, you do not want to be frying. Stir it and you can add small amounts of water – nothing should be burning on the bottom. You may lower the heat now as well.

8. Cut up the bacon (and stop eating it, you need it for the dish). Add the bacon and stir it in.

9. Cook until you have the cabbage at a consistency that you like, stirring occasionally. Probably about 10-20 minutes depending on the heat and cabbage. Remember, you should be steaming it covered. You can add small amounts of water and if you find that there is too much, remove the cover for the last few minutes. Check for adding salt and pepper.

Like I said, it tastes great and it’s hard to screw up.

SilverSolder:
That looks awesome!   :-+   +1 for the period china!

Something similar works with lamb,  minus the onion and plus some whole pepper corns.

I'm sure both can be served with medium boiled potatoes!

DrG:
Thanks, I made it today and it is good stuff and no reason we can't impinge on the Irish and their corned beef and cabbage :)

BTW: I was given that dish by my mom when I went off to college long ago...I still use it, as you noticed.

helius:
Bacon fat is also the secret to making Brussels sprouts palatable. And it improves vegetable stew a great deal.

Halcyon:
I can get on-board with this recipe. I actually don't mind cabbage at all. My mother makes these awesome cabbage rolls will minced beef, rice and other things (I must get the recipe off her).

The only thing I'd add to this would be a decent amount of dried chilli flakes, either during cooking or at the end for some crunch.

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