Duck fat and grapefruit salad

Awwww yeah. Hot duck fat poured over napa cabbage. Just what you always wanted, right?

It's actually a much more balanced salad than it sounds. The crispy raw cabbage is cut by the acidity of the grapefruit but then there's the richness of the duck fat. Delicious hot or cold, but best hot.

2 grapefruit
6 cups shredded napa cabbage
1/4 cup duck fat
1 tablespoon minced shallot
1 tablespoon sherry vinegar

Grate the zest off the grapefruit and set aside. Cut out the segments (without the pith or membrane) and juice the remainder. Save the grapefruit segments and juice. Shred the cabbage and place in a large bowl.

Heat 1 tablespoon of the duck fat over medium heat and add the shallot. Cook til softened, add the remaining duck fat and the grapefruit segments and juice. Stir until hot. Add the vinegar, salt and pepper to taste. Pour the dressing over the cabbage and toss to mix. Serve immediately.

Overnight cole slaw

Today is barbecue day!

And what goes with barbecue? Cole slaw, baked beans, and barbecue sauce. (Maybe some cheese grits.)

I'm not a big fan of mayo-heavy slaws. This slaw is great because you can make it the day before, and leave it sitting in the sun for as long as you need to, since there's no mayo involved.

3 1/2 lbs cabbage, shredded
1 large Vidalia onion, shredded
1 lb carrots, shredded
3 celery ribs, shredded
1 cup sugar
1 cup white vinegar
3/4 cup peanut oil
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1 teaspoon celery seeds
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup chopped parsley

Mix the veggies together and add the sugar.

In a saucepan, combine the vinegar,oil, and seasonings (not the parsley). Bring to a boil. Pour the dressing over the slaw and mix well. Refrigerate overnight.

Just before serving, drain the slaw and add the parsley.

5-spice pork tenderloin with cabbage

1 pork tenderloin, thawed
1 large onion, cut into wedges
1 large cabbage (red or green), cut into wedges
1 cup white wine or apple juice
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
Spice mix, made by combining:

1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon each cinnamon, ground cloves, fennel seeds, ginger, and 1-2 broken up star anise
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
salt and pepper
2 teaspoons sesame seeds
1 tablespoon sesame oil

Place the onion and cabbage in the bottom of a large heavy casserole or Dutch oven. Rub the mustard into the pork, and press the spice mixture into that. Pour the wine over the vegetables, and lay the pork on top. Roast at 500 for 15-20 minutes, and let rest 5 minutes before cutting.

Boudin-stuffed cabbage rolls

I can't believe no one's ever done this before.

Traditional stuffed cabbage rolls (a Jewish staple) are stuffed with a mixture of ground beef, rice and veggies (onion, carrot, celery, maybe a parsnip) and slow-cooked in a tomato sauce. Hearty, filling, real winter fare. I was poking around in my fridge the other day and realized I had a head of cabbage that needed to be used up. But I wasn't in the mood for either slaw or soup.

"Stuffed cabbage rolls!" says I.

"But I don't have any ground beef," I told myself.

"Pshaw," I scoffed, "I have this boudin right here. All thawed out even."

And boudin, as we all know now, is a loose pork-and-rice sausage. All I had to do was add the veggies, and voila! Instant cabbage roll filling! With pork, and spices, and yumminess!

For those of you without boudin, any other kind of ground meat is just as good.

1 head of cabbage
1 carrot, diced
1 stalk of celery, diced
1 small onion, diced
1 lb ground meat (or pork, or boudin filling, or whatever)
1/2 cup uncooked rice
2 tablespoons tomato paste
salt and pepper
tomato sauce or juice

Core the cabbage by cutting out the core from the bottom, leaving the head intact. Put the head in a bowl and pour a pan of boiling water over it. Let sit.

Meanwhile, saute the carrot, celery and onion in a little olive oil until soft. Transfer to a bowl. Add the meat, rice and tomato paste and mix well. Season with salt and pepper.

Fill each cabbage leaf with a 1/4 cup or so of the mixture (you may need to cut out the bottom inch or two of the center vein) and wrap into a small roll. Fill a pan with the rolls. Add enough tomato sauce to just cover the rolls, bring to a boil, then cover and simmer 45 minutes. Serve immediately.

Freezes beautifully.

No-mayo coleslaw

As Hurricane Irene lumbered up the East Coast yesterday, I spent the day in hurricane preparation.

Step 1: the usual. Make sure we have plenty of water, candles, batteries, and cash. Bring in everything from outside. Pick everything in the garden. Wash all the dishes and laundry in case we lose power. Charge all the phones.

Step 2: Turn all the perishable food into non-perishable versions.

I had a refrigerator full of vegetables. Normally this is a good thing, but if we lost power, I'd be SOL when it came to transforming those veggies into dinner. (Since I don't have a grill or a propane camp stove or anything.) So I spent yesterday cooking, turning all those veggies into things that could be eaten at room temperature. (I also made bread.)

Tabbouleh. Kale salad. And today's no-mayo slaw, recipe courtesy of Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.
1 small head red cabbage, shredded
4 medium carrots, shredded
1 bell pepper and 1 jalapeno, shredded
cilantro to taste

Mix those things together. If you're making this in advance of a hurricane, like me, keep the dressing separate until you want to eat the slaw, to keep it from sitting in the fridge for a few days in its own juices and getting soggy.

For the dressing:

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
juice of 1 1/2 limes
1 small minced garlic clove
1/4 cup peanut or olive oil

Mix together the first three, and add the oil in a steady stream while whisking constantly.

Now, if the power goes out, I have a bare minimum of things that might go bad (mostly the meat in the freezer, and the eggs). All the food I prepared can survive for, and be eaten at, room temperature for several days, saving the space in the cooler for the meat and eggs and whatnot.

Best of all, it's all healthy fresh food, which means we won't have to subsist on granola bars and cold canned soup.

Apple-cabbage slaw

A great slaw, with no mayo required.

From Food52:

1 cup apple, thinly sliced

2 cups green cabbage, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, grated on a microplane
1 small red onion, finely diced
3 tablespoons fresh cilantro, finely chopped
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar, (organic if possible)
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper, to taste

Mix together. Enjoy.

Red cabbage, caramelized onion, and goat cheese pizza

Because Valentine's Day is right around the corner, I'm going to be featuring pretty red foods this weekend. Starting with this red cabbage pizza. (Which, okay, is really more purple than red, but it's still a gorgeous color.)

I know you're thinking, "Cabbage on pizza? Really?" But this was really good. Not cabbagey at all. And healthy, despite all the cheese!

On a whole-wheat pizza crust, I layered:
olive oil
ricotta
caramelized onions
a handful of gorgonzola (optional)
a handful of mozzarella (optional)
one whole gently sauteed chopped red cabbage
lots of goat cheese

...and baked at 475 until the crust was done.

To caramelize onions, slice two thinly and let them cook down on medium-low for a long time, at least 45 minutes. They'll turn a dark brown, and get very sweet. To saute the cabbage, chop in half, remove the stem, slice thinly, and add to a hot pan with a little olive oil. Just for a few minutes, just enough time for the cabbage to start to get soft. Any more than that, and it will start to lose its pretty color.