Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Fried Cabbage

I'm from the North y'all.  I've never tasted fried cabbage before. Now, mind you, I lived in Maryland (they consider themselves the South) for eight years in the 1980's to early 1990's.  I've never tasted fried cabbage.  (However, I did discover fried sweet potato fries while I lived there.  Talk about yummy!)  I've lived in Texas and Oklahoma now for 12 years--never saw fried cabbage.  In a little dive at a podunk airport, I tasted my first fried cabbage.  Wow!  You can really make everything taste better when you fry it--and I like cabbage.  Here's a quick easy way to do it:

Fried Cabbage (from memory):

1 head cabbage, core removed
about 1/3 c. oil
bacon (!)
1 onion
2 pinches sugar
salt and pepper

1.  Heat up the vegetable oil on med to med/hi heat in a deep pan, and cook the bacon in it .  The original recipe said 3 slices cut into thirds.  I add about 6 slices and cut them a little smaller so it goes farther when served. 
2.  Meanwhile chop the onion into a large dice.  Slice or chop the cabbage into a large dice.
3.  Once the bacon is cooked, add the onions.  Sweat them for a minute or two then add the cabbage.
4.  Add two generous pinches of white sugar (it helps the cabbage caramelize) and add salt and pepper.
5.  Cook, stirring frequently, until the cabbage is crisp-tender and reduce to about half its volume.

This takes me about 15 minutes total. 
Fried cabbage is so delicious, I serve it about once a week now and have very little in the way of left-overs (darn it!).  The only one that doesn't like it is my oldest son.  He is my picky eater, but I think that may be due to his diabetes.  I think he tastes things differently than the rest of us.  Anyway...
Try fried cabbage.  Delish!

I think this may be the original recipe I used:  http://allrecipes.com/recipe/southern-fried-cabbage/

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