Savoy Cabbage

In these vegetarian rolls, shredded cabbage adds cancer-fighting betacarotene; nori—sheets of dried seaweed—supplies calcium, magnesium, and iron; and shiitakes boost the immune system, thanks to the active compound lentinan. Look for soba noodles and nori in the Asian foods section of your grocery store.

Vegetable stock is an essential ingredient in many vegetarian soups, but it also provides incomparable flavor to many well-loved vegetable (but not necessarily meat-free) soups such as this one. Minestrone has become so familiar in the American kitchen that it might be easy to forget its Italian origins. But the name—minestre is the word for soup, while the suffix (-one) indicates bigness—hints at its universal appeal as a simple pantry-based soup that is also hearty and substantial. The foundation of flavor, called a soffritto, is a common element in soup-making: a trio of celery, carrots, and onion is sautéed first, then stock and more vegetables are added and slowly simmered to coax out their flavors. Beans are what distinguish minestrone from other vegetable soups; the type varies by region, as does the addition (if any) of pasta or rice (this version has neither). The beans are also what give the soup such heft, making it a good option for a meatless one-pot dish (if you leave out the prosciutto) that can stand as the centerpiece of any casual dinner. The beans need to soak overnight in the refrigerator, so plan accordingly. Then they need to boil for at least a half hour, so use that time to prepare the rest of the ingredients for the soffritto and soup.

This traditional Irish potato dish can be assembled up to 2 hours ahead and then browned just before serving.

A medieval fastness above the Mar Tirreno, Guardia Piemontese is a thirteenth-century village raised up by a band of French-descended, Waldensian heretics in flight from papal justice. Pursued into the pathlessness of Calabria, they resisted the Church’s soldiers then and again and again. Two hundred years had passed when, flush with the dramas of the inquisizione, Pius V dispatched a brigade up into their serene agrarian midst, calling for, in the names of Christ and the Holy Ghost, their massacre. Those few who escaped the flailing of the Church’s swords stayed. And those who were born of them stay, still, speaking a Provencale dialect and celebrating the traditions of French country life, gentling their patch of the earth as though time was a stranger. Too, they are true to their own and simple gastronomic heritage, having obliged no transfusion of the coarser Calabrian kitchen. Here follows a thick mountain soup, so like a Béarnais garbure (a thick cabbage soup from Béarn) even to the blessing of its last smudges with red wine as the French are wont to do à la faire chabrot—pouring a few drops of red wine into the last spoonful of soup, stirring it up and getting every last drop as both a blessing to the cook and a thank-you to God.

Served under Soy-Syrup Roasted Duck (page 142), this super-tender cabbage perfectly balances the richness of the meat. But I love it so much, I eat it on its own, too. As always with fresh cabbage, I add the juniper berries at the end to lightly perfume the dish.

A pleasing composition using a minimum of exotic ingredients, this traditional Asian dish becomes somewhat offbeat through the use of fresh tomatoes and basil.

I like this seafood stuffing far better than the usual meat stuffing: it's surprisingly light and refined. If you want your cabbage rolls to look as pretty as ours do, make sure to use Savoy cabbage, then trim the cabbage leaves so they lie flat. Right after you blanch the leaves, lay each leaf, rib side up, on a cutting board and slice off the thick center rib. By removing the excess, you'll be able to roll the cabbage leaves tighter and more uniform-looking.

Look for wonton wrappers in your supermarket’s refrigerated section (often next to tofu); they are also available frozen. Unused wrappers can be frozen, wrapped in plastic, for up to two months.

A boiled dinner, which to be more precise might be called a simmered dinner, is an assortment of meats and vegetables simmered slowly and gently until tender. The resulting broth is clear and full of flavor and the meat is fork-tender and moist, comfort food at its best, restorative to body and soul. A variety of meats can be put into the pot; among them is usually a gelatinous cut to add a bit of body to the broth and a bony one to enrich the flavor. Some favorites are short ribs, brisket, beef cheeks, shanks, oxtail, chuck, beef tongue, chicken (either legs or a whole chicken), and sausage, or sausage-stuffed cabbage leaves. A boiled dinner is often served with the broth as a first course followed by the meats and vegetables, but I prefer to serve it all at once, with the meat and vegetables arranged in deep soup plates, moistened with a generous ladle of broth. Typical accompaniments for the meat are coarse sea salt, pickles, and a piquant sauce such as salsa verde, Dijon mustard, horseradish cream (grated horseradish, heavy cream, a pinch of salt, and a splash of white wine vinegar), or a tomato sauce spiked with capers. It is worthwhile to get the meat a couple of days ahead and to season it generously with salt and pepper. This will make it even more succulent and tasty. When a beef tongue is included (and I am quite partial to tongue in a boiled dinner), it should be soaked in salted water for at least eight hours to purge and season it. When deciding how much meat to buy, plan for ample leftovers. The broth makes fabulous soups and risottos and the meat is great sliced and served hot or cold with salsa verde, or in sandwiches, or chopped for hash. Classically, a boiled dinner is made with water. For a richer, sweeter broth, I like to use chicken broth instead, or half chicken broth and half water. This dish is easy to make, but it does take a while to cook, so plan for a few hours of simmering. Keep the pot at a bare simmer, with bubbles breaking the surface only now and then. Cooking meat at a boil will make it dry and stringy. Because their flavors can dominate the broth’s, beef tongue, sausage, and cabbage should be cooked separately from the beef and chicken. As an option to cabbage and sausage, or as a lovely further addition, consider preparing stuffed cabbage leaves. Add vegetables to be served with the meats towards the end of the cooking so that they leave a fresh, sweet taste in the broth. Here is a recipe for a complete boiled dinner—a classic Italian bollito misto—that includes different cuts of beef, a beef tongue, chicken legs, sausage, and stuffed cabbage. This is a bountiful dish that can easily be pared back all the way to the simplicity of boiled beef with carrots alone. Although this is a long recipe, some parts can be prepared in advance. The meats and tongue can be cooked ahead and stored in their broth. The sausage, stuffed cabbage, and vegetables are best prepared and cooked close to serving time. Timing is not critical; once everything is cooked and ready to eat, all the meats and vegetables can be reheated together in the broth and served.

The most common type of cabbage is round, smooth-leafed green cabbage, but there are many other varieties to choose from. Smooth-leafed cabbage can be green or red, round, conical, or even flat. Each has a different flavor and texture. I find red cabbage to be a bit more pungent in flavor and to have thicker, tougher leaves. Savoy cabbage is round with thin, light yellow-green, crinkled leaves; it is my favorite for braising. Napa cabbage is an elongated light green cabbage with very tender leaves that have broad, light-colored ribs. This cabbage cooks quickly and makes a great coleslaw. Other cabbages include Asian varieties, bok choy, tat-soi, and mizuna to name a few. These are loose-leaved and dark green in color and are best suited for cooking (except young mizuna, which is an excellent salad green). When choosing cabbages, select brightly colored, compact heads. They should be firm and feel heavy. Loose-leafed cabbages should not be yellowing or wilted. Remove and discard any damaged or wilting outer leaves. Remove the core from headed cabbage. This is unnecessary for the loose-leafed varieties. Braised savoy cabbage is a versatile and stellar winter dish, served either by itself or as an accompaniment to braised duck or chicken or fried sausage.

A Roman classic and, like so many of those dishes, smacking of garlic, chile, and bay. You can serve this with just bread, of course, or precede it with a pasta dish or soup.

Kimchi, the world’s best-known Korean ingredient, generally describes pickled vegetables, though cabbage is the most common choice. Originally a basic salt pickle, chiles were introduced in the sixteenth century, followed soon thereafter by fish or shrimp paste. Regional influences determine the level of pungency, with warmer regions producing kimchi heavily seasoned with chile powder and anchovy paste. Some take to kimchi immediately; for others it is an acquired taste. For information on nam pla (Thai fish sauce), see page 500. If you love kimchi, you’ll enjoy making this version. Even though it’s quick, the results will be as good as that found at most restaurants and better than almost any version you’ve bought in jars. Kept refrigerated, it will last for about a week. Dried salted shrimp are inexpensive and keep forever; you’ll find them at most Asian markets.

The major difference between stuffed cabbage and most other stuffed vegetables is that cabbage is inevitably cooked in a sauce; you can use the sweet-and-sour sauce here or simply simmer the leaves in Fast, Fresh Tomato Sauce (page 606). Serve either with crusty bread or, if your filling does not have much rice, over rice. Cabbage leaves also may be filled and stuffed exactly as you would grape leaves (page 446) and served hot or cold, again as you would grape leaves. You will have plenty of cabbage left over after you remove the leaves for stuffing; use it in any stir-fry or in rice or soup. Other vegetables you can prepare this way: any large leaves can be stuffed—grape leaves, collards, and turnip greens, for example.

Savory pies are favorites in Russia, and cabbage pie is the most common. I have not been there, but my friend Jacqueline Mitchell has, and she returned with this, certainly the easiest cabbage pie ever. I think it is best suited as an appetizer or a snack, but it’s an odd dish, good hot or at room temperature, mysteriously simple, and quite glorious when it’s done. Other vegetables you can prepare this way: any cabbage (red will not look too great, though it will taste fine), including Savoy and Napa.

Cabbage, when it begins to break down, becomes quite creamy, and that’s what makes this dish somewhat unusual. This will be stronger tasting if you use plenty of black and red pepper, olive oil, and pecorino or quite mild if you start with butter, reducing the black pepper, eliminating the red, and finishing with pecorino. You can also make it far more substantial; see the variation.

If you can’t find pizzocheri, a buckwheat pasta cut like fettuccine, you have two choices: make it yourself (page 542) or substitute any fettuccinelike pasta. If you can’t find Taleggio (already a compromise, because when I had this dish it was made with a local Alpine cheese whose name exists only in dialect), use fontina (real fontina, if you can find it, from the Valle d’Aosta), or another fairly strong but not too hard or harsh cheese.

The thyme really shines in this soup, which is unusual for its use of sautéed apples as a slightly crisp, sweet garnish. In the old days, during times of bounty, a piece of meat would be added with the cabbage; you can do that too, but the cooking process will get much longer. I find this light, first-course soup much more useful without it.

Just down Smallman Street from our Lidia’s restaurant, I have serious sandwich competition in Primanti’s, a Pittsburgh institution. I am charmed by their incredibly oversized warm capicola sandwich stuffed with French fries and coleslaw. I am not sure where in the U.S.A. this tradition of stuffing a sandwich with French fries became Italian, but the sandwich was so tall that I could not open my mouth wide enough to get my first bite. Primanti’s started as a sandwich pushcart, manned by Joe Primanti, in the Strip in the 1930s, selling sandwiches to truck drivers. One night, a trucker wanted to check if his load of frozen potatoes were good, so Joe Primanti cooked them up. Customers began asking for them, and to expedite the service they were added to the sandwich.