1st Blog Anniversary and Braised Red Cabbage

We turned one!

I made braised red cabbage to mark the occasion, and served it with pan fried pork shoulder steaks simply seasoned with fleur de sel and freshly cracked black peppercorns. It was cold by the time we stopped shooting and finally sat down for dinner, but it tasted so great!

You know what else is great?

You! Yes, you.

Because as much as we bloggers write these stories for ourselves to journal what matters to us, it can also get incredibly lonely without you in the picture. Your comments, tweets, likes and shares make us, as corny as it may sound, feel like a million pounds!...although cake can do the same too but that's beside the point... You may or may not have any idea how much you matter, or make a difference to a blogger's day...but you totally do.  

So thank you, for being amazingly encouraging and kind by visiting my blog, and being part of this absolutely brilliant experience.

One year, thirteen days and counting…hopefully, we’ll see many more years through together.

Love & blessings xx

jaim

Ingredients

½ of small red cabbage

2 large oranges (juice and grated rind)

½ tsp coarse sea salt

½ tsp freshly cracked black pepper

2 tbsp orange blossom honey

1 tbsp soft light brown sugar

*to braise the whole cabbage, double all the ingredients and make sure you use a larger pan.

Cooking time

30 minutes to prep

2 hours 45 minutes to braise on a low heat

Shredding the cabbage

Remove the white core of the cabbage by cutting a ‘v’ down the bottom and centre of the cabbage halve. I also remove any outer leaves looking brownish or damaged.

Slice the cabbage into thin shreds, no wider than 1cm and place them in a large colander. Thoroughly rinse the shredded cabbage, all the while running your fingers through it to separate clusters of leaves. Leave to drain.

Now transfer the shredded cabbage to your pan. I used an enamel roaster from Morrisons and you can also find the same type at Lakeland.

Getting ready to braise

Add the orange juice, grated rind, sea salt and black pepper to the cabbage. Set your pan or roaster on the stove over a medium heat and place the lid on. Take care to check as there isn’t a great deal of liquid in the pan at this stage and you may run the risk of burning the dish if trying to cook it too quickly at a high heat.

When the orange juice comes to a boil, reduce the heat down to the lowest possible heat setting and leave it to braise for 2 hours on the stove.

At the end of two hours, add the brown sugar and honey; stir through and leave to braise for another 30 minutes. Check the texture of the cabbage at the end of this cooking time, and add another 30 minutes if you prefer much softer cabbage.

To serve

The cabbages go really soft and sweet, with a lovely citrous edge and I've found that salty meaty dishes are the best accompaniments. Aside from the pan fried pork shoulder we had, try roasting chicken legs additionally seasoned with meaty herbs such as rosemary, thyme, oregano or marjoram.