Several times during my years as a homemaker, the
price of iceberg lettuce has gotten too high for a normal middle-class family
to afford! When that happened in the
1980s, a friend introduced us to what he called ‘skunk cabbage’. It was Napa Cabbage and he called it ‘skunk’
because the shape was like a skunk’s tail!
I quickly learned how to adjust my lettuce salad recipes to Napa Cabbage,
and it was easy. My favorite part of the
head of lettuce is the center crunchy core, so it was easy to learn to love
Napa Cabbage! The tender leaves joined
in a wonderful crunchy base, and we loved it!
Napa Cabbage has a mild flavor that is a cross between
Iceberg Lettuce, celery and cabbage. In
Asian cooking you find it in stir-fry, soups and eaten raw. It is the pickled ingredient in Kim Chee and
is often called Chinese Cabbage.
Botanical evidence suggests that it was cultivated
4,000 years ago. It was brought to the
United States in the 1880s by immigrant laborers from China and Japan. It is truly vintage!
Napa Cabbage will take on the flavors of things you
cook with it. That makes it especially
versatile in many cuisines. My favorite ‘vintage’
period is the 1940s through the 1960s. Cookbooks from those decades share recipes for
salads and sides made with Chinese Cabbage, often using cream, which is an
unusual ingredient in Asian cooking. Lion’s
Head Meatballs is a popular Chinese dish that may have originated in China as
early as the 1600s. The big meatballs resemble the head of the guardian lion.
The meatballs are cooked in broth with Chinese Cabbage … our Napa Cabbage!
The recipe I’m sharing today is kind of a fusion! I love cabbage rolls (which are German to
me); I love fried rice and I love Tai Basil Beef! Using the big outer leaves of the cabbage, I
stuffed them with savory fried rice and prepared them for baking. I made a delicious sauce, rolled thin slices
of sirloin roast. Let’s start with the
sauce.
Tai Basil Sauce
Mix: 1 tsp of
garlic paste, 1 T of fish sauce and another T of oyster sauce. Whisk in 1/3 cup of soy sauce and ¼ cup of
brown sugar.
In a heavy saucepan, sauté a couple chopped green
onions and a cup of loosely chopped Tai Basil in a T of olive oil. The onions will
start to soften quickly and as soon as you see that happening, add the sauce
ingredients. Stir for a couple minutes
until the sugar melts away and the sauce is bubbling.
Prepare the Rolls and Meat
The leaves of the cabbage are pliable enough that you
don’t need to pre-cook them in order for them to fold. Place a
serving of prepared fried rice into each leaf and gently fold it around the
rice.
Place your cabbage rolls in a baker and place a rolled
piece of sirloin next to each one. Add
several slices of bright red (bell) pepper to the dish and pour the sauce over it
all. Cover with foil and bake at 350
degrees for about 40 minutes. Before
serving, drizzle smoked sesame oil over each serving and garnish with a big sprig of Tai Basil! The flavor is so good!
Remember the rest of your head of cabbage! You’ll find zillions of salad recipes online,
but my favorite is the one that many of us make for potlucks! You know that recipe that calls for broken
Ramen noodles on top … with almonds? You’ll
find it online. Enjoy!
I’ll be sharing this with a couple blog parties, so
make sure you look at my sidebar to find those sites. This post is part of my Vintage Vegetable
food project for 2020. If you want to
see other recipes, just click the page on my menu bar!
