Vinegar-Slithered Green Cabbage

After wading through all that cabbage information, here is the pay-off. This is the first cabbage I ever had that I liked. Not too hard to achieve, considering that my mother cooked vegetables the old-fashioned way ... boiled to death.

From The Key to Chinese Cooking by Irene Kuo
Serves 4 or more

1 small head green cabbage, about 1 pound
3 tablespoons oil
4 dried red chili peppers

Sauce:
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon cornstarch
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
2 tablespoons light soy sauce
1 tablespoon dry sherry

Remove the cabbage's tough outer leaves and cut off the stem. Quarter the cabbage and cut out the core. Cut the leaves into pieces about 1 inch square, toss in a colander to separate, and then rinse and drain (do not rinse and drain until shortly before the stir-frying).

Mix the sauce ingredients in a bowl until the sugar and cornstarch are dissolved.

Heat a wok or large, heavy skillet over high heat until hot. Add the oil, turn heat low, and toss in the peppers. Press and turn them in the oil until they are deep red -- do not let them blacken since they won't look as pretty with the cabbage. Then turn heat high, scatter in the cabbage, and stir and flip for about 2 minutes in the hot oil.

Add the sauce and stir in folding motions for 30 seconds; then pour into a hot serving dish.

Cabbage: Types

NAPA CABBAGE
A long, heading cabbage with a light yellow-green color. The peak season is summer into fall, but it is available year-round. Quality indicators include no browning or withering of leaves and relative heaviness for size.

GREEN CABBAGE
A tight, round heading cabbage. The color may range from light to medium green. The peak season is late summer to fall, but it is available year-round. Quality indicators include loose wrapper leaves that should be firm, no withering, no browning or bore holes, and relative heaviness for size. Early varieties are less tight. Winter or storage cabbages are more firmly packed.

RED CABBAGE
A tight, round heading cabbage ranging in color from deep purple to maroon. The stems on individual leaves are white, giving a marbled appearance when cut. The peak season is late summer to fall, though it is available year-round. Quality indicators include loose wrapper leaves with a greenish cast. The head should be very glossy, with creamy white veining.

SAVOY CABBAGE
Moderately tight, round heading cabbage. The leaves are textured, giving a waffled appearance. The peak season is summer to fall. Quality indicators include a fresh appearance, color that ranges from moderate to light green, and loose wrapper leaves that should be firm.

The Cabbage Family: the Effects of Heat

Why does the whole house smell like cabbage (or broccoli or cauliflower) after you've cooked it for dinner? Here ya go...

Heating cabbages and their friends has two different effects. Initially the temperature rise within the tissue speeds the enzyme activity and flavor generation, with the maximum activity at around 140°F/60°C. The enzymes stop working altogether somewhere short of the boiling point. If the enzymes are quickly inactivated by plunging the vegetables into abundant boiling water, then many of the flavor precursor molecules will be left intact. This isn't always desirable: cooking some mustard greens quickly, for example, minimizes their hot pungency but preserves the intense bitterness of their pungency precursors. Boiling in a large excess of water leaches flavor molecules out into the water, and produces a milder flavor than does stir-frying or steaming. If the cooking period is prolonged, then the constant heat gradually transforms the flavor molecules. Eventually the sulfur compounds end up forming trisulfides, which accumulate and are mainly responsible for the strong and lingering smell of overcooked cabbage. Prolonged cooking makes members of the onion family more sweet and mellow, but the cabbage family gets more overbearing and unpleasant.

On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee

A Favorite Coleslaw

In line with finding out about the effects of chopping cabbage, here is our family's favorite, quintessential American coleslaw, which is only proper as it comes from James Beard's American Cookery. This is the Sweet and Sour Slaw variation of the basic recipe. I make only half the amount of dressing for the same amount of cabbage and use all mayonnaise.

1 cabbage, 2-3 pounds, finely shredded
1 cup mayonnaise
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup vinegar
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1/4 teaspoon Tabasco

Crisp the cabbage in cold water for an hour. Drain well and combine with the mayonnaise, sour cream, and seasonings. Toss well and let stand 30 minutes, or even longer if you like a rather wilted slaw. Correct the seasoning before serving.

The Cabbage Family: Effects of Chopping

Different preparation and cooking methods give different flavor balances in cabbage relatives. It's been found, for example, that simply chopping cabbage -- for making coleslaw, for example -- increases not only the liberation of flavor compounds from precursors, but also increases the production of the precursors. And if the chopped cabbage is then dressed with an acidic sauce, some pungent products increase sixfold. (Soaking the chopped cabbage in cold water will leach out most of the flavor compounds formed by chopping, at the same time that it hydrates the leaves and makes them crisper. When cabbages and their relatives are fermented to make sauerkraut and other pickles, nearly all of the flavor precursors and their products are transformed into less bitter, less pungent substances.

On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee

The Cabbage Family: Cabbage, Kale, Brussels Sprouts, and Others

Like the onion family, the cabbage family is a group of formidable chemical warriors with strong flavors. It's also a uniquely protean family. From two weedy natives of the Mediterranean and central Asia, we have managed to develop more than a dozen major crops of very different kinds: some leaves, some flowers, some stems, some seeds. Then there are a dozen or more relatives, notably the radishes and mustards, and crosses between species: altogether a rich and ongoing collaboration between nature's inventiveness and our own. Beyond the cabbage family itself, some of its distant botanical relatives share elements of its biochemistry and therefore its flavors; these include capers and papayas.

The Flavor Chemistry of the Cabbage Family
Like onions, cabbages and their relatives stockpile two kinds of defensive chemicals in their tissues: flavor precursors, and enzymes that act on the precursors to liberate the reactive flavors. When the plant's cells are damaged, the two stockpiles are mixed, and the enzymes start a chain of reactions that generates bitter, pungent, and strong-smelling compounds. The special cabbage-family system is effective enoughto have inspired a notorious man-made version, the mustard gas of World War I ...

The stockpiled, defensive precursors in the cabbage family are called glucosinolates... Some of the flavor precursors and products are very bitter, and some have significant effects on our metabolism. Particular [precursors] interfere with the proper function of the thyroid gland and can cause it to enlarge if the diet is poor in iodine. But others help protect against the development of cancer by finetuning our system for disposing of foreign chemicals. This is the case for substances in broccoli and broccoli sprouts.

A given vegetable will contain a number of different precursor glucosinolates, and the combinations are characteristic. this is why cabbage, brussels, sprouts, broccoli, and mustard greens have similar but distinctive flavors. the chemical defensive system is most active -- and the flavor strongest -- in young, actively growing tissues: the center of brussels sprouts, fr example, and portions of the cabbage core, which are twice as active as the outer leaves. Growing conditions have a strong influence on the amounts of flavor precursors the plant stockpiles. Summer temperatures and drought stress increase them, while the cold, wetness, and dim sunlight of autumn and winter reduce them. Autumn and winter vegetables are usually milder.

On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee