Polish braised red cabbage with apple: sweet and sour, for roasts and duck
The side without which there is no duck or roast in a Polish home: red cabbage braised with onion and apple, with bay, allspice and cloves, seasoned with vinegar and sugar and finished with a spoon of flour. The vinegar isn't only for flavour: acid is what keeps the cabbage a vivid purple; without it, it turns grey-blue. An hour, one pot, better the next day.
Your own work in that: 20 min.
- Shredding 10 min
- Braising 40 min
- Thickening and seasoning 10 min
Step by step
0 / 6 done
Shred the cabbage
Remove the outer leaves, quarter the cabbage, cut out the core and shred finely, with a knife or a mandoline. Dice the onion, peel the apples and cut into large dice.
Ingredients: 1000 g red cabbage · 1 pcs onion · 2 pcs apples · 40 g butter or lard · 150 ml water · 2 pcs bay leaves · 4 pcs allspice berries · 3 pcs cloves · 3 tbsp cider or spirit vinegar · 2 tbsp sugar · 1 tsp salt · ½ tsp black pepper · 1 tbsp plain flour
Thin ribbons, onion and apple diced
Soften the onion
Melt 25 g of the butter in a wide pot and soften the onion over medium heat 5 minutes, until tender and lightly golden.
Onion soft and golden, not brown
Braise the cabbage
Add the cabbage, apples, bay, allspice and cloves, pour in the water and stir. Cover and braise over low heat 35–40 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes, until the cabbage is tender but still slightly springy. If it dries out, add a spoon of water.
TipAt this point the cabbage may look dull grey-blue. That's normal: the pigment in red cabbage, anthocyanin, changes colour with acidity. In a neutral setting it is purple, in an alkaline one (hard water, for instance) blue, and in acid it turns red.
Covered, low heat, until tender
Vinegar brings back the colour
Pour in the vinegar and add the sugar, stir. Within seconds the cabbage turns from grey-blue to vivid purple. Add the salt and pepper. Taste: it should be distinctly sweet and sour, like a good vegetable preserve.
TipAdd the vinegar at the end, not the start: acid slows the softening of cabbage, so added too early it noticeably lengthens the braise.
Vinegar and sugar: the colour returns in seconds
Thicken
In a small pan melt the remaining 15 g of butter, add the flour and cook, stirring, for 1–2 minutes until the roux turns lightly golden. Loosen it with 3–4 spoons of the cabbage liquid, pour into the pot and stir in. Cook 3 minutes, until the sauce thickens and coats the cabbage. Remove the bay leaves, allspice and cloves.
The roux, a thick glossy sauce
Serve
Hot, with duck, goose, pork loin, meatloaf and dumplings. Keeps 4 days in the fridge and tastes better each day. Reheat with a spoon of water.
With a roast and potatoes
Before you start
With red wine
150 ml dry red wine instead of the water: a deeper, festive version for goose and game.
With bacon
100 g diced smoked bacon fried with the onion: more filling, a dish in itself with potatoes.
It came out blue
Too little acid, or hard alkaline water. Add a spoon of vinegar or lemon juice and stir: the colour returns at once.
Nutrition
per 100 gStep photos are computer-generated from the recipe.
