This recipe is part of Ugly Vegetable Winter – weird winter vegetables that are delicious, locally grown, and often ignored. The recipe and technique can easily work with any cruciferous vegetable, so if all you have is kale or broccoli you can make this. But this is cabbage. Everyone has cabbage.
I grew up eating a lot of cabbage: kupus salata (vinegar coleslaw), sarma (pickled cabbage filled with meat and rice), and podvarak (baked sauerkraut with pork). I love cabbage. Cabbage needs time and love to taste good.
This is an easy, delicious, hands-off cabbage recipe. It takes 5 minutes of work and you throw it in the oven for an hour. You’re rewarded with soft-crispy cabbage that melts in your mouth. The gremolata – a condiment made from parsley, lemon, and garlic – adds a beautiful brightness to the dish that makes it addictive. I’ve eaten a whole head of cabbage this way and I’m not ashamed.
This recipe takes 1 hour, but you’re mostly waiting, and can easily be doubled or tripled.
Method
Roast the Cabbage
Cut a small amount off the bottom of your cabbage to clean up the base. Cut the cabbage in half, then cut each half into quarters or thirds, depending on how big your cabbage is. You want to leave the core intact, as it will hold the layers together.
In a braiser or on a baking sheet, add 2 tbsp of olive oil, a pinch of salt, and some black pepper. Place the cabbage flat-side down on the baking sheet.
Top with the remaining olive oil, a pinch of salt, and fresh black pepper to taste.
Place in a cold, turned off oven. Turn the oven on to 425°F and bake for 1 hour. The cabbage will slowly cook as the oven pre-heats and begin to brown after 45 minutes. Do not use convection, it will burn the cabbage leaves.
Remove the cabbage when the exterior is browned and crispy and the core is soft enough to pierce with a fork with no resistance.
Make the gremolata
While the cabbage roasts, make the gremolata. Finely chop the parsley and place in a bowl.
Grate the lemon zest and the garlic into the bowl. Add the olive oil, a pinch of salt, and fresh black pepper.
Stir everything together and taste it. Add more lemon or salt if needed.
Serve
If you find raw garlic too spicy, you can add the gremolata onto the cabbage as soon as it comes out of the oven. The residual heat will smooth out the garlic taste.
Serve warm.
Make it a meal:
To turn this into a lunch, serve it with toasted nuts and crumbled feta cheese. Roasted cabbage is delicious served with roast chicken. For an equally lazy chicken recipe to serve for lunch, cold pan chicken is a perfect pairing.