Beef & Cabbage

As I sit here typing up tonight's dinner recipe, I noticed this would make two posts about cabbage in a  row - and I'm perfectly ok with that.  Farming is seasonal work.  I know these cabbages will only be around for a short while, and I'm taking full advantage!  As consumers, we're used to heading on over to the grocery store, at any time of year, and find pretty much every type of produce imaginable.  We forget, winter produce like cabbage shouldn't be readily available all year long - and especially not in the middle of the hot Florida summer!


Beef & Cabbage
by Chef John N Carminati


Ingredients
Cabbage Mix
1 white onion, sliced thick Julianne
1 medium cabbage, chopped
1 bok choy bottom, chopped (separate from leaves)
1/2 cup scallions, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 1/2 - 2 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp butter
salt to taste

Beef & Marinade
1 Tbsp cumin
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tsp whole fennel seeds
2 generous pinches Kosher salt
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 tsp hot sauce
3/4 - 1 lb thinly sliced beef

Method

1. In a medium bowl, combine beef marinade ingredients.  Add beef slices, and let marinate. 
2. In oiled saute pan, sweat onions until translucent and slightly caramelized.
3. Add cabbage, bok choy and butter to the pan and cover.
4. Stir every so often.  When bok choy and cabbage are tender, remove pan from heat and keep covered.
5. In a hot pan, sear the beef until cooked through.
6. Fold scallions into cabbage and add salt to taste.
7. Serve beef over cabbage

Demo Day - Bacon & Cabbage

Bacon & Cabbage

by Chef John N Carminati

Ingredients

3 strips of your favorite bacon, sliced thick Julianne
1 medium cabbage diced
1 medium bok choy diced, separate top from bottom
½ bunch chopped mustard greens

Method

1. In a large saute pan, over medium high heat, render out bacon until it starts to crisp up.
2. Add in cabbage and cover for about 10 to 15 minutes, mixing often.
3. Add the bok choy bottoms then cover again for about 5 min.
4. Add mustard greens and bok choy tops, wait 5-7 min longer and taste.

This was a very simple dish to cook, one you can come back to every so often while you’re working on other things in the kitchen. The best part of this dish (aside from its amazing flavors) is you only need four ingredients. The bacon was just salty enough, and gave off just the right amount of fat to help steam out the cabbage and wilt down the mustard greens to our desired consistency.

I wanted to use mustard greens so much in this dish to prove they’re not as scary as most people think. In fact, mustard greens are off-the-charts high in nutrition and so flavorful - once you bite into them, you definitely know you’re eating a mustard.  Please don’t be afraid of the unknown.  Lessons are learned though trial and error.  You’ll never know if you don’t like something until it’s on your plate.

Keep in mind, and I’ve said this many times before, recipes are always open to interpretation by the one behind the knife.  In your kitchen, you are the chef. There are times during my demos or at home, cooking for my girlfriend, when something in a recipe just doesn’t feel right for the moment.  Change it up a little, and the dish will take on a life of its own.

Food is good.