Cabbage Stew

When I was younger, my mum used to cook this on occasion and I loved it, especially topped with a big pile of grated cheese.  My mum had written it and several other recipes into a little notebook for me about ten years ago, so as Kerri was out this evening I dug it out and gave it a go.  It doesn’t sound very interesting from the title, but I rather like it and it’s a sort of comfort food for me.  I know it won’t be on most people’s comfort food list as it’s healthy and lacks some essentials such as sausages and mashed potatoes, but it does it for me.  Of course, I generally undo some of the healthy aspects of it by topping it with the aforementioned big pile of grated cheese.

We had most of the ingredients apart from cabbage, so I got one on the way home and got to work.  This is the slightly adapted recipe:

Ingredients – serves 2:

1 onion, sliced
2 cloves of garlic, crushed or finely sliced
1 tin of tomatoes (410g)
2 large carrots, grated
half a savoy cabbage, stalky bits removed and shredded
6 baby corn, cut into quarters (my mum used frozen corn kernels so use that instead if you have it)
leaves from a few sprigs of thyme (or any other herb that you have, even just dried mixed herbs)
1 tablespoon tomato puree
big pile of grated cheese (optional)
cooked brown rice for serving

Method:

If you are serving with brown rice then the rice will probably take longer to cook than the rest of this, so put that on first.  Heat up a little oil in a saucepan and cook the onion and garlic until the onion is soft but not starting to brown.  Add carrots and stir fry for a few minutes.  Add the tin of tomatoes and the tomato puree and bring to the boil.  Let this simmer for a few minutes and then add the corn and herbs and season with salt and pepper.

Let these cook for a while until the corn is softening, then add the cabbage and stir it in well.  If there isn’t enough liquid, add a dash of water.  Cover and leave it to cook for a few minutes so that the cabbage is just cooked but still green and retains some texture.  If there is a lot of liquid still at this point, add a dash of cornflour mixed in water to thicken it.

Serve on the rice and top with the big pile of grated cheese!

It’s ages since I had this and I’d forgotten and/or hadn’t realised how quick it was to make.  It’s fairly simple and not to everyone’s taste, but it is both quick and healthy.  Except of course for the cheese.  I love the taste of the tomatoes mixing with the other vegetables and the texture of the rice.  It’s a little like a proto-vegetable-soup that hasn’t evolved into a soup yet.  And there is some left to take to work for lunch too because that recipe serves two and there was just me and I wasn’t that much of a pig this evening.