Taste of Home: Rotkraut (German red cabbage)

It's time for another adventure in cooking.  German red cabbage as described in my trusty Dr Oetker cookbook.

Start with a head of red cabbage.  Take off the any unsightly leaves on the outside.  Then quarter it, core it and slice it.

After a false start using the shredder attachment of my trusted Cuisinart food processor, I used the slicing disk instead.  Much better!

By the way, I love my Cuisinart machine. My previous machine had a chute that did a great job throwing bits and shredded pieces all over the kitchen every time I used it.  Luckily, it had the great sense to literally disintegrate sometime last year. 

I had been looking at buying a new food processor for years, just could never convince myself to replace a working piece of equipment.   Now that the old one was broken, I could purchase the new one - a Black Friday sale item, by the way.  I love that machine - and I am not taking the word love lightly!  The little storage container for the blades also has proven to be quite convenient.... but I digress.  

Next, dice an onion and cut 3 small sour apples into small pieces. I used Granny Smith apples.

 

Saute the onions in the butter.  Then add the apples, the red cabbage, water, vinegar, the bay leaf and cloves to the pot.  Add salt and a little sugar to taste. 

Then simmer for 2 hours. No, that's not a typo. 

When it's done, the whole thing looks like this:

In my excitement I forgot to add the flour to bind the liquid in the pot, but it tasted pretty good.  

Since my children could not be convinced to try the cabbage, I portioned it out into lunches for work. Add some of the German sour potato slices and some sausage - voila - lunch!

....for a week.... 

Recipe: 

Rotkraut (German Red Cabbage) 

1 head of red cabbage (approx 750 g)

1 onion

3 small sour apples (for example Granny Smith)

60 g margarine (about 1/2 stick)

1 bay leaf

3 cloves

salt

sugar

2 TBS white vinegar

125 ml water