Winter Solstice Cabbage

I love cabbage. I love braised red cabbage. I love a big old bowl of braised red cabbage with warm spices and hints of orange and I especially like it with my solstice dinner or Christmas dinner or Boxing day dinner or dinner on any random Tuesday.

Now if you’re a braised red cabbage skeptic (you know who you are), let me just encourage you to try this recipe.
The results are warm, wonderful, and reminiscent of those countless mulled wine packets or simmer pots you’ve faffed about with that end up on the stove top for days before being unceremoniously dumped in the waste bin.

What’s magical about this recipe? Well, for one, you can eat it!

This whole dish will take you about 90 minutes, an hour of which involves doing anything else you want to while the ingredients do their thing in a braising pot. 

This will serve six at dinner, unless you’re like me, and then it serves one because I could eat the whole thing myself over the course of a couple of days.

     INGREDIENTS

• 1 head red cabbage, cored, and shredded
• ¼ cup brown sugar
• ⅓ cup vinegar
• ⅓ cup red wine (if you’d prefer no alcohol, use ⅔ cup of vinegar)
• Big pinch of salt and a few twists of fresh cracked pepper
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 star anise
• 6 whole cloves
• 1 small orange, zested
• 2 tablespoons butter
  
  HOW TO MAKE IT
  
  Grab your favourite braising pan or biggest skillet and put it over medium heat. Add the shredded cabbage, sugar, vinegar, wine (if using), salt and pepper. 
  
  Wrap the cinnamon stick, star anise, and cloves in cheesecloth and tie with kitchen twine. Toss the tied bundle into the pot. You can just add the spices directly to the pan, but remember to discard them before serving.
  
  Bring the cabbage and spices to a simmer, cover, reduce the heat to medium low and cook for an hour. Once every 15 minutes, open the lid and give everything a nice stir. 
  
  After an hour, remove the lid. The kitchen will smell glorious when you do this. Turn the heat back up to medium high and cook for about fifteen minutes more. Most of the liquid should be gone and what's left is pure syrupy deliciousness. 
  
  Scoop the braised cabbage into a serving bowl. Grate the orange zest over the top and dot the butter all about, just letting it melt into the cabbage in that particularly seductive way butter melts on just about anything. You can serve this right away with your roast dinner or reheat the next day. It’s perfect with hot or cold meats or lentil roast or on toast. Pop it in a resealable container and it will keep in the fridge for up to a week.
  
  Happy Winter Solstice eating and much love from Gwion @ The Witches Next Door​
  
• The recipe is mine, but the Photo credit belongs to - https://www.womanandhome.com/recipes/easy-red-cabbage-orange-zest/