Southern-Style Cabbage Recipe - Food.com (2024)

FAQs

Why do you put baking soda in cabbage? ›

Baking soda does help green vegetables retain color, but it causes undesirable color changes in red cabbage—it turned blue. The science can be distilled to this: Adding baking soda to cooking water makes it slightly alkaline, which stabilizes the green color of chlorophyll.

It's a matter of taste tho, of course. If you use regular bacon, turkey bacon, or beef bacon, you'll want to add a few tablespoons of oil or butter to the fat to make sure there's enough. Sugar: Plain ol' granulated sugar, the amount also to taste. It brings out the subtle, natural sweetness of Southern Fried Cabbage.

Once people started roasting them at a high heat, perhaps with a little extra salt and fat (like bacon), it was a game-changer. You can also try slicing cabbage thin and sautéing it to maintain some of its crunchy texture.

Add herbs. Adding the right herbs can also help ease digestion. A few of Cording's favorites that pair particularly well with cabbage include ginger and turmeric.

Crisp it up: Shredded cabbage stays perky if it's soaked in cold water. This also helps cut the pungent edge. Drain well before combining with other ingredients.

To cook cabbage without the smell, don't overcook it. Cabbage contains sulfur that multiplies the longer it is exposed to heat. The addition of an acid, such as vinegar, or baking soda neutralizes the sulfur and eliminates the odor. Green pepper or Bay leaves added to the cabbage will also reduce the smell.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, then add cabbage. (It's OK to crowd the pot because the cabbage will shrink!) Step 2Boil until tender, about 5 minutes for shredded cabbage and 10 minutes for wedges. Drain on a paper-towel lined plate to dry.

Cabbage can be particularly beneficial for people with diabetes, but its high nutritional value makes it a healthy choice. This vegetable is loaded with nutrients, including vitamin B6, vitamin C, vitamin K, manganese, and folate, and it is also high in fiber.

The salt then draws moisture out of the cabbage's cells through osmosis, forming a salty brine. This brine is important because it submerges the cabbage and deprives the Lactobacillus and other microorganisms of oxygen – the second step!

Why do you soak cabbage in salt? ›

Make your slaw with salted cabbage and it'll be noticeably less watery and stay crisp and fresh for days longer. Put sliced cabbage in a colander, sprinkle with salt (about a tablespoon for 6 cups cabbage), toss, let sit.

Douse the cabbage in vinegar water, if desired.

Vinegar kills some types of bacteria and helps killing mold and mildew that could have grown on the cabbage.

The key to cooking cabbage: Don't overcook it.

Cabbage is sweet and aromatic when cooked correctly. But the same sulfuric compounds that provide many of its health benefits can turn saboteur when overcooked, creating a pungent, unpleasant smell.

You're not cooking the right kind of cabbage

If you do want to cook it, add a touch of acid like lemon juice or vinegar to lessen the effect. The Savoy cabbage can be used as a substitute for green cabbage, just keep in mind that its leaves are a bit more tender than that of other cabbages.

contain anthocyanin, a molecule that is a reddish colour in its naturally acidic environment: fruit. But, when it comes into contact with alkaline ingredients (the baking soda in a cake batter, for ex.), the anthocyanin turns blue.

The cabbage juice is called an indicator because it can tell you the pH of a solution based on the color that it changes. The vinegar will turn the cabbage juice red because it is an acid (acetic acid). The baking soda will turn the cabbage juice greenish-yellow because it is a base (sodium bicarbonate).

Apply Diatomaceous Earth for Bug-free Cabbage

I've had good luck using diatomaceous earth if I end up with the cabbage moth larvae, plus you can use products with Bt such as Thuricide.

This is a bad practice, however, and you should avoid adding baking soda when boiling any type of vegetable. It has various unwelcome effects, such as softening the vegetable, altering the vegetable's flavor, destroying thiamine content, and hastening the loss of vitamin C.