A Giant Slap to Haute Cuisine – Noodles with Cabbage

So, after a busy weekend of cooking everything that was left in the fridge, and more, I finally have time once again to post something. I guess this is truly one of those recipes that

a./ are impossible to mess up

b./ require low effort

c./ get done in no time

I have already complained about the fact that I have rather interesting office hours (this means anywhere between 9 and 14 hours a day) – I am also very reluctant to buy fast food, especially so late in the evening. Mind you, I am not going to lie, I do go to the Turkish in the corner every once in a while, and yes, McD too once a month, or every two months, but whenever possible, I try not to do fast food or order from a home delivery service (especially not after last time’s overcooked penne with the super salty Napoletana sauce, which was basically uneatable.) So, yesterday, I had one of those funny hour office days again, and have decided that it’s no use warming up leftover stuff from the weekend (too heavy) – too late to get stuff from the Turkish, and as an extra, I still had some cabbage in the freezer from last time.

Yes, I know I gave myself away… it does happen from time to time that I cook in advance and just put stuff in the freezer. Cabbage is actually perfect for this. So I took it out, cooked some noodles, and ta ta, it was done!

Of course, I will explain how to prepare it, however, I felt the need to share why there’s not going to be imagery about the raw ingredients.

Noodles with cabbage takes me back to my childhood – it was a very popular dish at school canteens and also a much dreaded course for kids, as it featured a “K” vegetable, which most kids severely dislike.

“K” and “B” vegetables is a Hungarian term, or at least something that has been frequently used in my family – rumour has it that any vegetable whose name (in Hungarian) starts with a K or a B will have a horrendous smell while being cooked, and a unique (I’m being politically correct here) taste once it’s done. The following vegetables belong to this category:

• Cabbage (red as well, but especially white)
• Broccoli
• Cauliflower
• Brussels sprouts
• Savoy cabbage
• Potato
• Kohlrabi
• Beans
• Peas
• Chinese cabbage (or Bak Choi)

Is there something like this existing in English? I wonder…

But anyway, Mondays and Wednesdays were typically the noodle dish days in the canteen. They’d take the same kind of noodles (similar to tagliatelle, except it was cut short) and cook them completely tender in very salty water (no comment) and then they’d put something on top – grits and marmelade, potatoes, poppy seeds, curd cheese, walnuts, or cabbage. I despised this at school (since salty noodles + sweet toppings are disgusting in my opinion and especially the curd cheese noodles were the height of culinary experience with cooked pork skin (which they referred to as bacon) mixed in with the noodles and SUGAR on top of the curd cheese…) and I never quite recovered. Until this very day, I can’t process any of the sweet noodle types and I really don’t have fond memories of the school canteen because of these. I think this is also the reason why I still hate poppy seeds (unless they’re baked onto the top of bread) and don’t particularly like walnuts either.

I guess it’s a small miracle that I like the cabbage version but it also has to do something with the fact that my mom obviously had a totally different approach. Basically, there are four ways to eat noodles with cabbage.

a./ by itself with nothing on top

b./ with sugar

c./ with pepper

d./ with pepper and sugar

Of course, the canteen never gave an option and they always smacked a spoonful of sugar on top (and had no pepper added to the cabbage at all) – but at home, we had all the goodies, so we could just choose how we wanted it. So when I got older, I just took my mom’s approach to it, and eventually totally skipped the sugar on top.

Enough small talk – let’s see how it’s actually made. You take a small white cabbage and grate it – you have to grate it with the smallest holes on the grater. This usually takes a long time, so I usually end up asking Yuri to do it, as he has the raw power (and patience) that I don’t. I guess I could also chop it up in one of those universal blenders/chopping machines, and maybe I will in the future, but this time, it was all Yuri’s work. Once the cabbage has been grated, you add salt to it and leave it lying around for a while. Eventually (I usually give it an hour or so) squeeze the juices out of it and then the cooking process can begin.

Heat some oil and caramelise some sugar in it (I can’t give exact measures, I’d say about 2 tbsp of sugar for half a cabbage, but if it’s not sweet enough, you can always add more) and put the cabbage in it. Stir it continuously to make sure the caramel doesn’t stick together into huge inedible sugar balls, and after about 10-15 minutes, it’s ready – taste it and add salt and/or sugar to taste. I usually add black pepper to it at this point, because it’s just lovely.

In the meantime, cook the noodles. In Hungary, we usually use traditional square-shaped noodles for this (it’s referred to as “cube noodles” if translated directly, although the shape is obviously nothing like an actual cube :)) but since I couldn’t get those in Switzerland, I bought some fettuccine (alla casiligna), which was cut short and was certainly much thicker than what I’m used to.

Once the noodles are done cooking, stir them very thoroughly into the cabbage, to make sure that it’s evenly distributed and there you are, the dinner’s done.

Oh, by the way, I found this nifty feature on my camera called "FOOD MODE" - so now I won't have to take pictures as if I were taking close-ups from flowers anymore. Granted, this is not going to turn me into a new Annie Leibovitz or Stéphane Sednaoui but you might see a slight increase in image quality. :)