Photographer Luisa Brimble. Stylists: Olivia Blackmore, Kate Brown.
This one-pan cabbage recipe is the ultimate warming side dish. In-season cabbage is roasted until fall-apart tender, with the zingy, spicy flavours of harissa, mint and more. It’s easy, vegan, comfort food for winter entertaining and slow weekends.
Want to make your own harissa spice paste? Try our quick recipe for the chilli condiment.
Ingredients
Method
Preheat oven to 200°C/180°C fan.
Heat oil in a large, ovenproof heavy-based shallow pan over medium heat. Cook onion and garlic, stirring, for 4 minutes or until golden and caramelised. Stir in tomato paste, harissa and mint; cook for 2 minutes or until fragrant. Pour in stock and lemon juice, and gently stir until well combined. Season. Remove pan from heat.
Nestle cabbage wedges into sauce; cover pan. Transfer to oven; roast for 50 minutes or until cabbage is tender.
Increase heat to 220°C/200°C fan. Remove lid from pan; cook cabbage for a further 15 minutes or until edges of cabbage are deeply browned. Cool for 10 minutes.
Sprinkle cabbage with pine nuts, barberries and mint.
Barberries are a sweet-sour berry used in Iranian cooking. They are available from greengrocers and specialty spice stores. You can use chopped cranberries instead, if you like.
Test Kitchen tip
How to cook cabbage
The peak season for this vegetable is winter, but it is available all year round. It grows well in almost any soil and most climates, and has been a hearty staple food for generations. Most of these varieties respond well to long, slow cooking with rich meats, herbs and other vegetables.
White/green cabbage
Comes in round or long (sugarloaf) varieties. It is good for coleslaw, in stir-fries or steamed in a steamer or a covered saucepan with butter, just until it wilts. Its mild flavour is enhanced by cooking it with butter and a sprinkle of caraway seeds or with chopped streaky bacon which has been lightly fried. The leaves can be briefly blanched (dropped into boiling water) to soften them, then can be wrapped round meat and rice stuffings and steamed or casseroles.
Savoy
Crinkly-leafed and rich green shading into cream at the centre, is less compact and more flavoursome than white/green. It can be used in the same ways as white/green.
Red
Good raw in salads; otherwise, it repays slow, gentle cooking with a minimum of water plus an acid ingredient such as apple, vinegar or wine. The acid component is needed because plain water may be alkaline, which turns it a discouraging blue-green with flavour to match.
Wombok
Also known as Chinese cabbage. Long, rather loosely packed pale green with thin, crinkly, delicately flavoured leaves. It can be used in the same ways as white/green or savoy varieties and is also used in stir-fries and other Asian cooking.
