Cabbage noodles

February 5, 2010 at 8:33 pm (Cruciferous rich, Jewish, Starches, unrated, Website / blog)

In college I roomed with my best friend from high school.  She was also a vegetarian, and trying to keep kosher to boot.  Unlike me, she was lucky to have a grandmother that was a) still around, b) in town, and c) a good cook.  Her grandmother was Hungarian and would regularly stock our mini-fridge with various vegetarian Hungarian dishes.  My roommate was kind enough to share her grandma’s food with me.  One of the dishes that I remember fondly is “cabbage noodles.”   Despite the name, the noodles aren’t actually made from cabbage.  As far as I recall, the dish was simply lots of rich, oily cabbage mixed with curly egg noodles and plenty of salt and some black pepper.  I don’t know what kind of fat Sarah’s grandmother used to cook the noodles, but I recently found a recipe on Salon for noodles and fried cabbage, or “Hungarian ice cream” that seemed similar, and it calls for butter.The recipe calls for 1 pound of pasta and 1 medium to large head of green cabbage.  I’m not sure what a medium to large head of green cabbage is, but I had two rather small heads.  One was savoy cabbage and weighed about 8 ounces after removing the core.  The other was normal green cabbage and weighed about 1.5 pounds after removing the core.  When I added the cabbage to my 12 inch skillet I discovered that 2 pounds of sliced cabbaged is about the maximum that will fit.  My German butter isn’t salted, so I added salt along with the butter. I know the recipe author urges the reader not to try to make it healthier.  But I just couldn’t add 4 Tbs. of butter per serving.  I added 4 ounces of butter, and the dishes wasn’t incredibly, decadently rich, but it was certainly still plenty greasy.  The cabbage was caramelized a little, and sweet, without any strong sulfur smells.  I thought the ratio of pasta to cabbage was too high though.  I enjoyed the dish, but it wasn’t quite as good as I remember Sarah’s grandma’s version being.  Also, it made a huge amount.  If I make this again I think I’ll use 12 ounces of pasta, 2 pounds of cabbage, and 4 ounces of butter, to serve 8.

Derek thought the recipe was okay, but a little bland.  He wasn’t too enthusiastic when we ate it with dinner the first night, but he was more excited about it after adding soy sauce.  I used some of the leftovers in a mushroom, fennel soup, and it was a lovely combination.