I had a head of red cabbage sitting in my fridge begging to be used, but I’d actually never cooked with cabbage before, so I was hesitant and had been ignoring it until tonight.
Naturally I did some poking around on the Jamie Oliver website and found this fantastic recipe that is really easy and full of flavour.
Just make sure you give yourself a little over an hour from start to finish.
Recipe serves 4 – 6 side dishes
Ingredients
- Olive oil
5 strips of bacon, finely sliced- 1 tbsp fennel seeds
- 1 yellow onion, peeled and chopped
- 2 good eating apples, peeled and chopped into 1-inch pieces
- 1 red cabbage, outer leaves and core removed, chopped into irregular chunks
- Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 150ml balsamic vinegar
- Knob of butter
Method
Pour a good glug of olive oil into a big pan over medium – high heat.
Get it nice and hot and then add your sliced bacon and fennel seeds. Let that sizzle away and cook it until the bacon is nice and golden.
Add your chopped onion. Stir it all around and get everything nicely coated in that delicious bacon fat.
Put a lid on your pan and continue to cook it all for a few minutes until your onions get some colour and your bacon gets a little crispy.
Add your pieces of apple, and then the cabbage chunks, salt and pepper and the balsamic vinegar, and stir everything together well. Put the lid back on and continue to cook on a low heat for about an hour. Check it every 15 minutes or so to give it a stir and a sniff, because it smells amazing.
When it’s all said and done, you’ll end up with an amazing, sticky, sweet, soft, beautifully red cabbage dish. The fennel seeds add a nice kick and balance out the sweetness of the balsamic and the apple. And of course bacon just makes everything better.
Serve this up in a bowl with a little knob of butter on top, and if you like, garnish with some chopped flat leaf parsley.