Indian spiced stir-fried cabbage

Exotic spices like cumin, fennel, and garam masala bring cabbage to life in this easy side dish. Lemon juice and cayenne pepper add an extra zing.

|
The Garden of Eating
Cabbage doesn't have to be boring! Spices it up with Indian flavors.

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know I'm crazy for cabbage but even if you're not, I bet you'll like this wonderful version. Mellow, sweet cabbage and caramelized onions meld with the warm, exotic flavors of cumin, fennel, and garam masala and get a little jolt of excitement from lemon juice and cayenne pepper.

Toasting the spices – cumin, fennel and sesame seeds – amplifies their flavors and brings out a nice nutty taste in the sesame. Sautéing makes the onions soft, sweet and mellow. Ditto for the cabbage. Cooking it reveals a whole other side with a sweet, pleasing flavor.

Cook it until the flavors meld and the cabbage and onions are soft and mellow. Then squeeze a little lemon juice over it – the acid brings all the flavors into focus.

Indian-spiced braised cabbage
Adapted slightly from Madhur Jaffrey's Quick & Easy Indian Cooking
Serves 4-6

1 small head of cabbage, coarse outer leaves removed, core removed and sliced
1 large onion, peeled and sliced
1/4 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 teaspoon sesame seeds
4 tablespoons grapeseed or canola oil
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon garam masala
Juice of half a lemon

1. Heat the oil in a wide-bottomed cast iron skillet over medium heat. When it's hot but not so hot it's smoking, add the spices. Cook, stirring often, until the sesame seeds begin to pop, then add the onions and stir. Cook for another 3-4 minutes, stirring often until the onions become opaque and aromatic.

2. Add the cabbage and cook for about 6 minutes, stirring frequently, until the cabbage begins to brown a bit. Add the salt, the garam masala and the cayenne pepper and cook for another 6-7 minutes, until the cabbage is soft and translucent.

3. Add the lemon juice and stir, then taste and adjust the seasonings as needed before serving.

Related post on The Garden of Eating: Salty Sweet Roasted Cabbage

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Indian spiced stir-fried cabbage
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Food/Stir-It-Up/2015/0414/Indian-spiced-stir-fried-cabbage
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe