Roasted cabbage with porcini chestnut sauce
As a vegetarian or vegan at Christmas, you are often limited to variations on nut roasts, the possibility of a stuffed squash or maybe a pie. Cabbage usually appears as an afterthought: a side dish confined to a small corner of the plate. Here, Yotam Ottolenghi turns it into a shiny, centre-stage number to be admired in all its charred glory. To make this vegan, replace the butter with the same amount of extra virgin olive oil.
- Serves4 as a main, or 8 as a side
- CourseMain meal
- Prepare20 mins
- Cook1 hr 40 mins
- Total time2 hrs
Ingredients
- 1 white cabbage (about 1kg)
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tsp sea salt flakes, plus extra to serve
- 20g dried porcini mushrooms, soaked in 100ml hot water for 15 minutes
- 150g unsalted butter
- 2 small shallots (about 70g), finely chopped
- 2 clove/s garlic, finely chopped
- 100g cooked chestnuts, whole, roughly chopped
- 50g whole almonds, roughly chopped
- 30g pitted medjool dates, finely sliced (2-3 dates)
- 2 sprig/s large, leaves finely chopped
- 6 sprig/s large, ½ leaves picked, ½ leaves sliced
Method
Preheat the oven to 220ºC, gas mark 7. Put the cabbage root-side down on a chopping board and cut the top into 8 wedges, stopping halfway down. Rub the cabbage with the olive oil and 1 tsp of the salt, then wrap in baking parchment followed by foil so that it is completely sealed. Put in a small casserole dish and bake, without a lid, for 50 minutes.
Remove the cabbage from the oven. Increase the temperature to 240ºC, gas mark 9. Keeping the cabbage in the casserole dish, unwrap it and gently pry open the wedges like a flower. Return to the oven, uncovered, for 30-40 minutes, or until the outer leaves are charred and the inside is slightly coloured and tender. Remove from the oven and put the cabbage on a serving platter to rest while you make the sauce (you can use the foil/parchment to help remove the cabbage from the oven dish as it will be very hot).
Strain the porcini through a sieve over a bowl, reserving the liquid. Roughly chop. Put a medium saucepan over a medium-high heat and add the butter. When bubbling, add the shallots. Cook for 3 minutes, then add the rest of the ingredients (apart from the whole sage leaves and porcini liquid) with the remaining 1 tsp salt and several twists of black pepper. Reduce the heat to medium and cook for a further 7 minutes until fragrant. Remove from the heat, add the reserved porcini water, and mix well to combine.
Pour about ½ of the sauce over the cabbage. Sprinkle over the extra salt, some black pepper and the remaining sage leaves, then serve immediately with the rest of the sauce on the side.
Cook’s tip
If there’s time, fry the whole sage leaves in a little oil before sprinkling over the cabbage.
Nutritional
Typical values per serving when made using specific products in recipe
Energy | 2,402kJ/ 594kcals |
|---|---|
Fat | 46g |
Saturated Fat | 21g |
Carbohydrates | 30g |
Sugars | 21g |
Fibre | 13g |
Protein | 9.1g |
Salt | 2.4g |