I grew up with cabbage as a child and my mother, my grandmother braised it in bacon drippings and beef or chicken stock, which is one of my favorite ways of preparing it.
So simple, my puppy could make it:
- Cabbage wedges
- Sliced Red or Yellow Onions
- Bacon, Pork Belly or smoked hamhocks
- 1 bottle of your favorite beer or apple cider
- Salt, pepper to taste
No need to slice and dice... just cut big wedges of cabbage, slice some onions if you feel up to it and toss in either ham hocks, slices of pork belly or diced bacon. Drench the rest with some of your favorite beer and you are good to go.
Don't have beer on hand? How about some apple cider? No apple cider, try chicken stock or beef stock. We had a root beer but preferring a less sweet version, we opted for the half drunk bottles of Pilsners leftover from the night before. So what if it's flat? By the way, a root beer would be the perfect foil if we had a red cabbage but since we have the most monstrous head of green cabbage I've ever seen, we opted for a lighter liquid and chose to use the leftover beer we had on hand.
Bake:
Bake at 350 F for about 45 minutes to an hour, adding more liquid at the half hour mark if it looks like it is cooking out too quickly. I use a large Creuset, uncovered, to bake this dish or one of my large stainless stockpots if doing it on the stove.
If baking, just pop it in the oven, set the time for 30 minutes just to check on it and keep baking for the full 45 minutes to an hour if you prefer your cabbage more or less tender. The flavors really develop the longer it braises so keep an eye on it so the liquid doesn't cook out and it begins to burn instead of caramelizing.
If braising it stove top, you can cover it and simmer on low for the first 30 minutes and uncover it the rest of the way to reduce down if you like more of the caramelized flavors like I do. To me though, baking is the easiest way and if I bake it, I can usually get in my evening swim while it braises away!
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