cooking: recipes ,food and More


				Home \| About Us \| Contact Us

Cabbages

Cabbages are a famous vegetable for Middle Easters. The most popular dish for cabbages is stuffed cabbages. It is also used in other recipes mainly salads and appetizers. There are also several kinds of cabbages, the green-white cabbages are the ones used for stuffing, while red cabbages as well as white cabbages are usually cut into strips (shredded) for the other recipes. What is explained here is regarding green-white cabbages.

Buying tip

Select the heads that have shiny, bright-colored green leaves and heavy for their weight.

Best season

Usually available all-year round but in June and July is a bit bitter

Cleaning and washing cabbages

Boiling cabbages

Freezing and defrosting cabbages

Storing Cabbages

Stuffing Cabbages

Cleaning and washing cabbages

Remove the outer layer or two. They are usually very open and faded. You can wash the cabbage as a whole if you will cut it into strips. Soak cabbage head in a bowl of water and vinegar for 2 minutes. Then wash under running water from all sides. Here, you can cut the cabbage head into two pieces vertically and put it again under running water so that water can reach and go through the inner parts of the cabbage. Put it inverted over a dry towel to drain well.

There is also another way of washing if you will use the leaves for stuffing or if you’ll cut them into strips. Pull the leaves off the head and soak them in a bowl of water and vinegar for 2 minutes. Rinse the leaves under running water and put them over a dry towel to dry.

Boiling cabbages

Fill a large deep pan with water. Add salt and about 2 tsp cumin and a tbsp salt and bring to boil. Add cabbage in the boiling water. Mainly the leaves are boiled but you can boil the whole head too. Stir so that leaves don’t stick together and are constantly soaked in water. Leave to boil for 4-7 minutes or until leaves become transparent and tender.

Remove from pan with a slotted spoon or spatula and put in a colander to drain. If the leaves are too many, add the quantity that the pan can take, leave to boil, remove and then put the rest.

Freezing and defrosting cabbages

Freeze only the cabbage leaves after pulling them off the head. If you will use them for stuffing, follow the same steps in boiling cabbage leaves except that you insert the leaves in boiling water and lift them right away. Don’t leave them more than 2 minutes. Run cold tap water through the leaves in the colander. Leave to drain very well. Cut the large leaves and remove the veins. Arrange leaves on top of each other in plastic bags. Put about every 20 leaves in each plastic bag of medium size. Remove excess air, close well and place in freezer.

If you will use them cut into strips, then cut them after washing and put the strips in plastic bags, remove excess air, close well and place in the freezer.

To defrost, just get the bag out of freezer and leave it until ice melts. You can remove leaves from inside the bag and leave to defrost. Run cold water through them.

Storing Cabbages

Store cabbage head unwashed in the fridge for 2 days, more than that its smell will spread in the fridge. You can wrap it with plastic wrap well before placing in the fridge.