“Fried” Cabbage

I have noticed this about myself:  I go through phases where I’m excited about cooking and trying new recipes, and  then I go through phases where I just get a little bored with it.  I find myself making the same simple things over and over, and it feels sort of blah.  One of the best things about joining the CSA at Basket of Life Farm  is that the beautiful, fresh produce they grow really keeps cooking exciting!

Today, I rushed home from work ready to try cooking something brand new – fried cabbage.  (Brand new to me, at least!)  I have to thank Audrienne (my Uncle Kim’s mother) for this idea – she knew I was looking for new cabbage recipes, and suggested that I try frying it.  I had never heard of fried cabbage, but when I asked my boyfriend, Brian, about it, he was amazed (and slightly appalled) that I had never tried it!  Brian suggested that I make it with buttered noodles and top it with some sliced hot peppers to kick it up.  I had one head of cabbage left, so that’s exactly what I did!

Now, from what I can find online, “frying” cabbage isn’t really frying the way I think of it.  It’s more of a saute – Audrienne, please tell me if I did it right!  It turned out to be a beautiful dish, and the bite of the hot peppers was perfect with the mild cabbage and noodles.

Here’s what I did:  I chopped a few strips of bacon and cooked them in a large, heavy bottom pan until they were crisp.  I removed the bacon from the pan and added some olive oil to the bacon fat.  I tossed in the sliced cabbage with a bit of salt and cooked that over medium heat until it was just a bit tender (maybe 8 minutes or so?  I wasn’t really watching the time – oops).  While that was working, I cooked some angel hair pasta from Ohio City Pasta, then tossed that in some herb butter.

I piled the noodles in a bowl, topped that with the cabbage, then added a Hungarian hot pepper sliced in rings and the bacon bits for garnish.  Pretty and tasty!

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