Butter and Soy braised Cabbage

These Butter and Soy braised Cabbage quarters make a delicious yet simple vegetable side for your Sunday gatherings.

I didn’t think that life without butter was even remotely possible until this year – well at least until last week, when I found 1/4 stick of butter in the back of my fridge, completely forgotten. Normally, I would run through a pack of butter in a month or two, but this one had been slowly consumed over the course of the last 6 months.

It was the last of the butter, and I did not intend on buying any more – it’s getting easier and easier to becoming Vegan now, except for the milk in my coffee which I am still working on, by the way. But this butter needed a going away party befitting its deliciousness.

I haven’t made this Braised Cabbage in a long, long time, but I felt that the occasion called for a little bit of extravagance. You know how I love my family recipes, but the way my grandmother made these alarmed many people. She would dunk an entire cabbage into a pot of boiling water to cook, and fish it out and quarter it with her giant cleaver in clean, fell swoops while it was still scalding hot without blinking an eyelid. Why they ever called women ‘the weaker sex’, I’ll never know.

She would then proceed to fry the steaming quarters in a ton of butter, and I am being very restrained with the word ‘ton’. But the end result was incredibly delicious – the woman had a magical way of manipulating fat into tantalizing and scrumptious meals.

I must confess, the idea of doing it her way frightened me a little, but it was the best use I could think of for the last few spoonfuls of butter in my life, so I tweaked the process a little bit to make it a lot less terrifying.

In my version, the cabbage is quartered raw, and sauteed in butter with onions and garlic until everything is just warmed up. The soy is drizzled onto the cabbage, seasoned with salt and pepper, and the whole pan is covered in foil and baked in the oven till perfectly cooked, yet still has it’s signature crunch. Feels much more humane and less like slaughter, doesn’t it?

In the oven, the cabbages braise in a gentle steam of butter and soy with no other liquid to dilute the taste, and the final product is absolutely delicate yet, delicious.

And you might find it nonsensical, but my favorite things to pair with this Braised cabbage are this Pulao (but a brown rice version) and a generous piling of raita. What can I say, it works!

Crunchy, sweet, earthy and fragrant is how I’d best describe this Braised cabbage, but you’ll have to try it yourself to truly understand how it tastes.

And I enjoyed every last wedge of the butter soaked cabbage and I’m not sure if it was the realization that I might never taste it this way again, but it was better than I ever remembered eating it.

When you make these (which I really think you SHOULD!), be sure to SHARE YOUR PHOTOS with me through Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. I’d love to see what you cook from here!

Butter and Soy braised Cabbage

These Butter and Soy braised Cabbage quarters make a delicious yet simple vegetable side for your Sunday gatherings.

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Prep Time 5 minutes mins

Cook Time 1 hour hr

Total Time 1 hour hr 15 minutes mins

Servings: 4

Ingredients Method

Ingredients

  

• 1 small cabbage (about 800 g), cut in 8 wedges
• 3 tbsp unsalted butter
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 3 large garlic cloves, minced
• 150 g onion, cut in wedges
• Salt and black pepper, to taste
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1/2 cup (50 g) spring onion, chopped

Method

 

1. Preheat oven to 350°F/180°C.
2. Melt butter and oil in a cast iron pan (8") over medium heat. Once hot, add the minced garlic and cook until fragrant, but hasn't begun to brown.
3. Add the onion and cabbage wedges into the pan and pour the butter and garlic on the wedges to coat. You can tilt the pan to one side to get the butter flowing there, then spoon over and repeat.
4. Drizzle the soy sauce on the cabbage wedges, then season generously with salt and pepper. Sprinkle half the chopped spring onions.
5. Cover the entire pan with aluminum foil and bake in the preheated oven at 350/180C for 30 minutes. About twice or thrice during baking, baste by spooning the juices back onto the cabbage.
6. Increase temperature to 425°F/220°C and continue baking for another 30 minutes. Continue basting twice during baking.
7. Remove from oven, baste again. Garnish with the remaining spring onions and serve hot.