"a what?"
"Cabbage pie! Or maybe more like a tart. A cabbage tart."
"ehrm..."
"It'll be good. Promise."
"I'll try it, to be polite. But it sounds gross."
I'll admit, it sounds a little strange. But, we picked a massive cabbage last week ("we"), and I'd only used about a third of it in my broiled cabbage dish. I was thinking that when purple cabbage cooks down, it gets kind of silky and smooth and might go very nicely in tart format, especially if you went with that sort of deep earthy flavor profile of thyme, toasted walnuts, and blue cheese. And I have to say, it turned out beautifully. I think maybe I should have beaten an egg into the mixture, just to help it hold together, but knowing Ed's general reaction to quiche, that didn't seem like a more reliable way to win him over.
Crust
1.25C flour
Pinch of salt
6tbs butter, cut into chunks
Cold water, one spoonful at a time until crust holds together
First step was a pie crust. A food processor makes that a cinch to whip together, though in retrospect I should have made a short crust, since I was just pressing it into the tart pan anyway. Blind bake that, until it's set, ish, as you prep the cabbage.
Filling
~1/2 head of purple cabbage
1 onion
2-3 slices bacon
~1/2C walnuts
~1/4C fresh thyme and sage
Salt, pepper to taste
2 tbs butter
2 tbs flour
~2C water or chicken stock or milk
~1/4C blue cheese
(sorry about all the approximate amounts. I don't think it really matters too much. I didn't pay that much attention, hence the guesses)
Slice an onion, and cook that down until it's starting to caramelize, with as much olive oil as necessary to do the job. Chop the cabbage into small-ish pieces, and saute that with a few splashes of vinegar and some chicken stock if you need more liquid. Salt, to encourage some water release, and then cook til tender. Transfer to a big bowl.
Chop and render some bacon. Two slices? three slices?
Harvest a bunch of thyme, chop some sage leaves, and throw that into the bacon pan after draining off most of the bacon grease. Either use that bacon grease or some butter to make a roux, and once the roux is nice and brown (I think it was at this point that Ed said "something smells really good"), whisk in some crumbled blue cheese.
Toast some walnuts in the oven, until toasty.
Mix everything (cabbage, bacon, roux, walnuts, herbs) in a big bowl. Spread it into the tart crust, and bake for ~20 minutes. Sprinkle more blue cheese on top, let it cool long enough so that you can handle it, and serve!
This got a great Ed-rating. He was all worried that the cabbage would be overcooked into mush, but no need to worry, it still had some chew. Also, we took a perfectly healthy cabbage and buried it in cheese and butter and bacon, and that definitely improved the flavor, texture, and satiation.
I highly recommend. Even though it's a little more involved than the light summer fare we've been making lately, this seems like a good one to repeat.
That pile of veggies next to it is matchsticked zucchini sauteed ever so briefly with the remainder of my pesto, topped with butter-toasted almond slivers and fresh tomatoes cut into spears. Quite delicious.
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