Red Cabbage with Apples

Now that I’ve told you the Red Cabbage Story, I guess it’s time to share my recipe with you. Red cabbage is perfect for the Christmas dinner table, even if you’re not German. First, I mean, gosh, it’s so pretty!




Red cabbage is a terrific alternative to the ubiquitous sauerkraut that is generally served with “German” meals in our country. If you’re planning a Germanic dinner with bratwurst, sauerbraten, rouladen, or some such; and with a starchy side of potatoes or spaetzel; then red cabbage can complete the “trinity” quite nicely. The sweetness of the cabbage especially complements pork dishes, the way fried apples do.

It’s not rocket science to fix this, though you do need to shred the cabbage. If you have a lot of time, you could schnittle it up with a sharp chef’s knife. But I use a Joyce Chen mandoline—it’s not the Rolls Royce of kitchen equipment, but like my trusty Honda Civic, it works fine. With this and all shredding devices, you need to be very careful not to slice off parts of your knuckles, fingertips, fingernails, etc. (Trust me, it’s easy to do, and it happens very quickly. I’m just sayin’. . .)

To shred it, I quarter the red cabbage first, then start shredding from the top part of each quarter, where the leaves are the loosest, then work my way down to the core. Again: be careful.




One time I had some cooked red cabbage that had been “shredded” with a food processor on “pulse”—the cabbage had been turned into dots of confetti instead of thin little shreds. It tasted okay, but the texture was pretty horrible.

Some recipes for cooked red cabbage—even ones from fairly reputable cookbook publishers—say to add the vinegar while you are cooking the cabbage. And I’m telling you: Don’t try it.

It’s just like when you’re cooking beans: If you add a bunch of salt, or acidic ingredients, or alcohol (red wine, for instance) at the beginning of the cooking, you only lengthen the cooking time. Pickled veggies get their “crunch” from vinegar. So adding vinegar before your red cabbage is tender only makes it stay hard, longer. So don’t do it. Tough cabbage isn’t any more fun than tough beans!

I repeat: Cook the shredded cabbage in just a bit of plain water, first, and then add the vinegar at the end. Got it?

By the way, you will love how adding the vinegar at the end causes the cabbage to shift from purple to red. It’s really cool.

And of course, the apples are optional. I don’t think Grandma Schroeder added apples when she cooked red cabbage. But they are a nice touch.




Also, as you can see from the pictures, last time I made red cabbage, early in the cooking I threw in a handful of lovely, huge golden raisins I bought at an international market. They were a wonderful addition! (I’m not sure that black raisins would look as appetizing, however.)

And no, this is not an heirloom recipe, which is rather sad. I wasn’t interested in cooking when Grandma was still alive and still creating her wonderful meals, so I didn’t follow her around the kitchen with a notepad the way I should have. Alas.

So this recipe is essentially from one of my mom’s cookbooks. I’ve altered it somewhat, reducing the apples quite a bit, for one thing. Also, the book doesn’t specify the type of vinegar, but I insist on using apple cider vinegar. (And I’ve found that Heinz, as a matter of fact, is indeed much more flavorful than generic.) Grandma didn’t use red wine vinegar or any of that high-falutin’ stuff!

The book reports that it makes about six servings. When I have my big sauerbraten dinners for fifteen to twenty, I have doubled it, depending on how big the cabbages are at the store and how badly I want leftovers. Also, of course, how much cabbage people eat depends on how many other side dishes you’re serving!

In my family, it is customary for most people to take seconds of the red cabbage!

—Yeah. It’s that special.


Cooked Red Cabbage with Apples

Adapted from Bountiful Harvest, by Mary Beth Jung (Reiman Publications, 1994).


1 to 2 1/2 lbs. red cabbage, shredded (about 1 head)
3/4 to 1 cup boiling (or very hot) water

1 large cooking apple, sliced in thin pieces

3 tbsp. butter
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

1 1/2 tsp. flour
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
2 tsp. salt
dash of pepper

Put cabbage into a large saucepan; pour boiling or very hot water over, cover, and simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in the apples; cook another 10 minutes or so or until cabbage and apples are tender. Add remaining ingredients, stirring gently to combine, and heat through.




You can prepare for this ahead of time: I’ve added spaces in the ingredients list to show groups that can be prepared the night before your dinner and stored together: Shred the cabbage and put it in one plastic bag. Slice the apple, dash a little of the vinegar on it so it doesn’t turn brown, and store that in another plastic bag. Put the butter and vinegar in a little storage bowl and put in the fridge. Then measure and store the dry ingredients on the counter. This way, putting the dish together the next day is easy-peasy, a back-burner affair.

The Red Cabbage Story

Here’s a story that’s just for you, about my great-grandparents Albert and Wilhelmina Thomas. They were my Grandma Schroeder’s mom and dad; they were married in 1885 and came over from Germany not long after that. I told you a little about them before.




I’m telling you this story tonight, because we just looked outside and noticed that snow is accumulating on the road. This is our first snow of the winter! And it’s miserably cold out there, with wind gusts up to 45 mph. I’m glad to be inside tonight. This is the perfect time to share this story with you.

This story must be from the 1930s or early 1940s, because Dad and Uncle Richard remember it, and Albert and Wilhelmina died, respectively, in 1942 and 1943.

Sometimes, though, when a story gets told and retold, you have to wonder how much of the story is a clear, direct memory, and how much has become “lore.” I’m not naming names, but some of us Schroeders are particularly marvelous storytellers, and sometimes you tend to add extra details to make a story more, um, colorful. . . . And what could be more colorful than the red cabbage story?




Let me refresh your memory on the setup. The Thomas/Schroeder family lived on the second and third floors of the house. The first floor was rented out to another family. When my dad and uncle Richard were boys, they and my grandparents slept in bedrooms on the third floor. My great-grandparents slept in the front bedroom on the second floor, and the bedroom across the hall from them was rented to a lady who worked for state government.

Anyway, apparently one night there was an argument. No one remembers what it was about, or who started it. But apparently it was between Albert and Wilhelmina. Deeply upset, Wilhelmina stomped off into their bedroom and locked the door behind her. She absolutely refused to come out. She was incredibly angry. Nothing anyone said could soften her up. She was resolute. The door stayed locked.

Oh my. What to do.

This was in the dead of winter, but Albert put on his coat and boots and tromped away into the snowy night. It was late. To this day, no one knows where he went. The family was wondering if they had to start being worried about him, now, too.

But he finally returned, stomping snow off his boots, swinging open the big wooden front door, ruddy from the cold, and with frost on his mustache. And he had with him a big, beautiful head of red cabbage. No one knew where he got it on such a cold, snowy night.

He knocked on the door of their bedroom and spoke quietly to Wilhelmina, and in a moment she opened the door a little bit. He showed her the red cabbage—and her anger immediately dissolved. Or, as the story is often worded in the retelling, she “forgot her anger.”




You know what it was. It was the pure joy of a perfect, beautiful vegetable. I totally understand, because there have been times I’ve almost wept with joy in a lovely, well-stocked produce section or farm market.

And also: it was Albert’s sweetness—that he was willing to go out in the bitter cold and somehow obtain that big, perfect head of cabbage for her.

And it was the comfort that he knew her so well that he could be confident this gift would turn her frown upside down. That’s love, you know.




Yeah, we’ve had Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and all that, but as for me, I’m going to keep the Red Cabbage story in mind when I think of gifts this year.




And each time I make our annual holiday sauerbraten dinner and present the big dish of cooked red cabbage, I remember the wintry gift that melted the anger of Grandma Thomas.

Irresistible Red Cabbage Slaw

I compleeeeetly stole this idea from the Happy Fisherman—last month they had a slaw like this among the various fascinating concoctions in their “salad boat,” and it wasn’t too hard to figure out how they made it. They are flippin’ geniuses!

The first reason we like it: Red cabbage is always special, always pretty. I don’t know why it’s so rare at restaurants.




This “recipe” is amazingly simple, and though it might not be the first food combination that comes to mind, I suggest you try this before you start snickering at it.

Adjust amounts accordingly.


Red Cabbage Slaw à la Happy Fisherman

1/2 head of red cabbage, shredded (approx. amount)
2 strips of bacon, cut into small pieces then cooked until done, but not crispy (try partially steaming it)
coleslaw salad dressing to your own tastes

Really—just combine it all. Easy-peasy. You’d think “bacony coleslaw” would be kind of nasty, but no. The bacon makes a huge difference, and it’s a very good one. Smoky. Sinfully delicious.

I’m bringin’ this to my next potluck.

The Dinner Mr. Sippel Never Had

I don’t mean to make fun of anyone, but it was kind of funny to think this yesterday when I plated the first Mrs. Sippel’s meatloaf alongside the second Mrs. Sippel’s cooked red cabbage.

I followed the directions, even though I was pretty sure the red cabbage wouldn’t cook well with vinegar in the water. Sue was a little let down by the texture and the flavor. Yeah, my recipe really is better. (I’ll share it one of these days.) But Mrs. Sippel’s wasn’t bad; it was just really plain. And crunchy.

Someday I’ll have to tell you a family story—well, more of a legend—about my Great-grandma Thomas and red cabbage. It speaks of the love she had for beautiful red cabbages, and the love her husband had for her.

. . . Okay, and the meatloaf—well! I was a little let down that it didn’t remind me a whole lot of my mom’s. Partly because I didn’t cook it as long as I remember my mom cooking it; she didn’t want us to get worms, or E. coli, so her meatloaf tended to be a little firmer than mine. I was actually going to leave it in the oven longer, but Sue noticed the sides had pulled away from the loaf pan, and the inside was cooked, so she probably saved me from overcooking it.

And another little detail that occurred to me: the ketchup on top. Mom always used to very carefully pour it out of the glass bottle in little dabs (note that the recipe says “dot with catsup”) . . . and here I am, in 2009, with a handy plastic squeeze bottle of Heinz that doesn’t deliver the ketchup in “dabs” or dots. Oh well.

It tasted really good. I have to admit that I used a little more onion than the recipe called for . . . and I cut up the bacon into little pieces instead of laying big strips down the middle (this way it’s easier to cut slices later on).

Today, we’ll have cold meatloaf sandwiches for a late lunch. It will taste really good with some watermelon and potato chips. Summer is definitely here, folks.

Mississippel

This post builds on the previous one, about the women of the Greatest Generation.

I’ve learned that someone connected to me, a member of this generation, passed away recently: Mildred Sippel. She was born in 1916, got married in 1954 (yes!), and was the organist for her church for many years. This information is from her obituary, here.

I copied this picture from the newspaper’s obituary, and ten bucks says that it, in turn, was copied from her church’s directory.

Here’s how she’s connected to me: My mom’s aunt’s husband was Mildred’s brother. Which is to say, she was the sister of my Great Uncle Adolf. No, I didn’t know her, but my mom did. And I’m sure we’ve attended some of the same weddings and funerals.

So. Mildred Sippel passed away, and I had to go look in my copy of Cooking with Faith, 1950 to 1975, also known as “Favorite Recipes of Faith Lutheran Church Women, Jefferson City, Missouri, 1970.” Because she was a longtime member of Faith Lutheran.

(No, it’s not very clear what the official cookbook title is—the thing on the cover, or the thing on the first page. And you can’t tell what the publication year is, either. Church ladies’ cookbooks can’t be bothered with such details—it’s more important to copy all those precious recipes accurately.)

And behold! I found one of Mildred’s recipes—in fact, I remember looking at this recipe before, because when I was first teaching myself how to cook red cabbage, I studied her instructions with curiosity. (How much red cabbage to use, then? Apparently this must not make very much. Maybe she was just thinking about cooking for two, huh. And do you think the spelling should have been “Bierich,” or what? Hmm. I’ll bet she was one of those gifted “cook by feel” people. . . . Or maybe that’s the pun in the book’s title—you have to have “faith” that it will turn out!)

Anyway, here ya go, verbatim from the bottom of p. 46 of Cooking with Faith. Read my note right after it, however. Very important.

Beirich Kraut

Place finely cut red cabbage in pan with slightly salted boiling water. (Water should barely cover the cabbage.) Add 1 teaspoon vinegar to water, cover pan and cook cabbage until tender, adding water if needed. When finished, add a little sugar or sweetener to taste.
Mrs. William Sippel (Mildred)

Note: I don’t know how long Mildred had to cook this after she’d added her vinegar, in order for it to get tender, but my advice is to cook the cabbage in water alone, first, until it’s completely done, before adding any vinegar. It can only be a small amount of water, too; it basically steams. As a general rule, if you add vinegar before the vegetable is soft, it will stay crunchy. . . . Hmm. Well, maybe Mrs. Sippel liked it crunchy.

Oh, and of course: Use apple cider vinegar. Of course.

Someday I’ll post my own recipe for red cabbage. Which is better; everyone loves it. But this is Mildred Sippel’s memorial post, and I don’t want to brag . . .

---------------

And now here’s a bonus recipe for you! From my mom’s handwritten collection! This recipe is known as “Mrs. Sippel’s Meatloaf,” but my Mom pointed out to me that it’s not from Mildred Sippel . . . and it’s not from Mildred’s mother-in-law, either. Nope. It’s from Mildred’s predecessor, the first Mrs. Sippel, who passed away—hence William Sippel’s remarriage in 1954, to Mildred, who was the second Mrs. Sippel.

So yeah . . . I’m feeling warm about this dish. This is the exact same meatloaf recipe my mom used all while I was growing up. This here is real home cookin’, I’ll tell you what!

Note: Making these kinds of connections are one of the best things about living in your extended family’s home turf.

Mrs. Sippel’s Meatloaf

1 1/2 lb. hamburger
1 egg
2 tbsp. chopped onion
1 cup cracker crumbs
1 cup milk
salt and pepper (to taste)

For Topping:

bacon (2 strips)
catsup

Mix together meatloaf ingredients and place in baking dish. Put 2 strips of bacon on top and dot with catsup. Bake 1 hour at 350°.

(For more on these recipes, with pictures, click here!)