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welcome to i was cooking, the first issue in this year of our lort 2021
2021 is so far just an extension of 2020, now with more trainwreck. And really, as a friend said*, 2021 can’t start until March 14th, a year from when the world ended last year. Perhaps we should follow Iranian tradition and start celebrating Eid Nowruz, the Persian New Year celebrating the first day of spring on March 21st. At least we’d be ushering in rebirth rather than preparing for the drudgery of winter.
Despite my jaded attitude, I did take the time to set some goals for myself this year:
learn to code
take a wine class
keep publishing this thing till the end of the year
use the time i spend on twitter to read 12 physical books
diversify my news sources beyond the New York Times
figure out how to be fulfilled in my career
be outdoors as often as i was in 2020
Surprisingly, this is the first year of my little life where I don’t feel the need to tear myself down through my resolutions. Part of it is the healthy relationships I cultivated last year after a depressive stint during quarantine and the rest is that I’m doing things for myself more than ever:
saw the trees along the charles river and thought about how nice it would be to spend time with them? I spontaneously took up running and built up my stamina to the best it has ever been
wanted new outfits I used to be intimidated by cuz “only skinny people can pull those off”? Bitch I got new clothes I look hot
felt lonely a lot? I worked out, read, cooked myself loving meals, journaled, took care of my skin, and reached out to a lot of family members and friends I don’t normally talk to
2020 taught me to put kindness first and everything flowed from there: I became kinder to myself, kinder to others, and lately I’m catching myself laughing as boisterously as I used to when I was 14, before I became destructively self-conscious, over my harmless tiny mishaps and coworkers’ dorky jokes.
If you’re writing your own lists of goals and resolutions I hope you’re centering your own well-being. I’d love to hear about them :)
I’m starting this year by reassuring you that you, yes YOU who got takeout for four nights straight and hasn’t gotten groceries in a while and is really great at cooking only pasta, CAN cook. As Julia Childs once said,
“No one is born a great cook, one learns by doing.”
We ALL have the capacity to cook good food for others and for just ourselves. The wonderful thing about cooking is how flexible and customizable it is—there really isn’t a singular correct way to make any one recipe. You won’t fuck it up by not following directions, you’ll just end up with something unique to your palate.
To help you with this, I’ve devised this simple recipe that will help you trust your instincts when it comes to salt and acidity and learn about the importance of tasting at every stage. It’s a cheap meal that lends itself well to meal-prepping or for quick weeknight cooking. Striking purple cabbage is cut into wedges, charred until you think you may have gone too far, and then doused in lemon juice and simmered with seasoned ground beef until wilted but not mushy.
Cabbage, the least glamorous of vegetables and most appreciated in Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes, is having quite a moment in the culinary world. It is the natural heir apparent (yeah I’m still watching The Crown lol) to the brussels sprouts craze of 2019, being from the same brassica family that brought us cauliflower, kohlrabi, broccoli and its adorable scrawny cousin broccolini, and—my personal favourite—turnips (I understand that turnips have not made their sexy Instagram debut to the world but they have, in my heart, always held an A-list celebrity spot).
I can’t stress enough finding the tiniest cabbage possible to make this recipe, preferably one that weighs 1 pound and no more than 1.5 pounds. Not only are the tiny cabbages easier to handle and cut, they’ll also cook faster and be a lot more tender than a larger cabbage. Save the larger cabbages to make stuffed cabbage rolls or this insanely hearty, comforting coconut-braised cabbage and chickpea stew that I kept snacking on while it cooked. If you only find a large cabbage, cut it into quarters through the root and slice them into 1-inch ribbons before sauteeing.
If like so many brussels sprouts haters you have recently become a convert of the tiny green vegetable thanks to a major makeover (oven roasting) you will not be surprised to learn that cabbage also benefits from being roasted and charred as opposed to boiled, as so many traditional recipes suggest. Letting any vegetable caramelise over medium-high heat brings out its inherent sweetness while concentrating its flavours (as opposed to losing flavour in a pot of water).
If you don’t eat meat, you can easily swap it out for a medley of your favourite mushrooms, sauteed till deeply brown. Beyond Beef would also work fantastically here.
cabbage stew over rice
makes 2 servings
the stuff
1-1.5lb small red cabbage
1/2 medium-yellow onion
1/2 pound ground beef
5 Tbls olive oil, divided
1/2 cup red wine
1 lemon, juiced, plus more for taste
paprika + red chile flakes
salt + pepper
vegetable or beef broth (optional)
the way
Tear off the exterior 2-3 leaves of a red cabbage. Carefully cut the cabbage in half, from top to core. Cut each half into 4 wedges, keeping the core as intact as possible, so each wedge measures an inch at its widest point. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Finely mince half the yellow onion. Add a tablespoon of olive oil to the warmed pan and, once hot, add the half a pound of ground beef. Use a wooden spoon to quickly break the meat apart and spread it evenly around the pan, sprinkle with salt, black pepper, paprika, and red chile flakes and let cook undisturbed for 3-5 minutes, until meat browns. Stir thoroughly and break apart and allow to cook another 3 minutes.
Set the cooked meat aside in a medium bowl, leaving as much of its cooking oil behind. Add minced onion and salt lightly, stirring so all the onions are coated in the oil. Deglaze the pan*. Once transparent, set the onions aside into the same bowl as the cooked ground beef.
Add the rest of the olive oil to the pan. Salt the cabbage wedges on one side and add as many of the wedges as you can fit without overcrowding the pan and accept that you may need to do this in two batches. Allow the cabbage to brown undisturbed for 5 minutes. Salt the exposed side of the cabbage wedges and turn them over. Allow the wedges to brown undisturbed for another 5 minutes. Add 1/2 cup red wine and allow the cabbage to absorb it completely.
Meanwhile, start cooking a separate pot of rice, bulgur, quinoa, or pasta, whichever you prefer (or heck, toast some bread).
Once thoroughly charred on both sides, add enough water (or vegetable or beef broth) to the pan to come up a third of the way up the cabbage wedges. Add the juice of one lemon. Once you add the lemon juice, the simmering broth should turn a bright pinkish orange. Add the cooked ground beef and onions back into the pan. Simmer at medium-low heat, uncovered until the broth is thickened, around 10 minutes, and the cabbage is soft and can be pierced with a fork but not yet mushy. If the cabbage is still too tough, add more water and possibly cover your skillet to allow the cabbage to steam for five minutes at a time. I kept my broth more watery in order to have more liquid to smother my bulgur but you can cook yours further until the broth becomes thicker and clings to the cabbage. Taste and adjust lemon and salt as needed.
Storage instructions: onion-y ground beef can be made and kept it in its own container for up to 4 days. I cooked each half of my tiny cabbage fresh on the different nights I had it, but you can make the beef and cabbage in one batch, together, and keep it in a container in the fridge for 4 days.
*Deglazing: cooking meats and vegetables means they leave behind browned bits in the pan. These brown bits carry a lot of caramelized savoury flavour that you don’t want to waste. Take advantage of the water the onion releases to deglaze the pan by vigorously scraping the bottom of the pan with your wooden spoon, incorporating the brown bits into whatever you’re cooking.
foodie fuckups
foodie fuckups here to remind you that we all mess up when cooking sometimes
tried making russian pickled cabbage slaw (shred a cabbage+carrots, add salt, mix+squeeze water out of cabbage and leave out at room temp for a few days) but ended up with a rotten cabbage three days later
this ridiculous cardamom merengue coconut cake i cried over when it came out raw. managed to salvage it with more baking and some tinfoil but if you see a recipe with 300+ comments calling it a bad recipe maybe … trust the comments?
lunchtime reads
this is a new section of the delightful, thoughtful, informative medium- to long-form articles I love reading during my short lunch breaks at work, since I avoid real news at all costs when I’m eating a good sandwich
what the hole is going on? the very real, totally bizarre bucatini shortage of 2020. Rachel Handler, GrubStreet
how to make (and keep) a new year’s resolution. Jen A Miller, NYT
the making (and remaking) of timothée chalamet. Daniel Riley, GQ
ganjang gejang: a dish you only make for someone you love. Eric Kim, Saveur
how we survive winter. Elizabeth Dias, NYT
cooking
This unexpected way to cook extremely tender chicken in chocolate milk, which yielded some fun chicken+(leftover) cabbage soft tacos. Some hard-shell tacos with the leftover half pound of ground beef+spices, pico, cheese, tomatillo salsa. These alfajores cookies I’m eating by the handful.
doing
Setting up a new bullet journal for the year. Journaling in my regular journal. Pre-ordering hot sauce from Reyna Castillo, who’s fermenting her own homemade hot sauces. The first batch is being made atm, but keep on the lookout for future ordering.
consuming
I finished Big Friendship (by Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman) and started on Michael W. Twitty’s Cooking Gene, chronicling the author’s “journey through African American culinary history in the old South.” I forget the exact quote and who said it, but it’s true that a great writer teaches you how to read them. Michael W. Twitty is teaching me a whole new language. Watching a lot of Bob’s Burgers and remembering how fun it was to watch cartoons as a kid. Thinking about how good The Fundamentals of Caring with Paul Rudd was. Started listening to Samin Nosrat and Hrishikesh Hirway podcast, Home Cooking, the day they wrapped up the show for good—quite appropriate for me to end 2020 by arriving late to a party I would’ve loved to be a part of. Reminder that god gave us ears so that we can listen to Glass Animals; don’t sleep on Dreamland, a nostalgic album in kodachrome to start out this year and carry you into warmer weather.
"I avoid real news at all costs when I’m eating a good sandwich" HUGE mood