cabbage

[adrian_turtle]

A local friend keeps recommending cooking videos. I like the ones where the spatulas and so forth are slightly anthropomorphized, but not fully so. And where things look like they should be fairly simple and easy because there aren't a lot of tools or space involved (even if they don't happen to be quite the tools or space I have.)

This is a recipe for a cabbage pancake impersonating pizza.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVSLEnBuqK8
As I don't eat cheese, I'm never going to make it. But I do like cabbage, and I have never been able to produce shredded cabbage anything like that easily. With a vegetable peeler? Really? Is it the vegetable peeler that's magic, or did they speed up the video or is it just one of those things that only looks easy if you've done it ten million times?

They also rinse the shredded cabbage in several changes of water, and dry it before sauteeing. Do any of you know if this is to remove bugs? Dirt? Salmonella? I thought it was sufficient to wash the outer leaves, but I may be living dangerously in these parlous times. Does it improve the texture?

Comments

[cynthia1960]

I think that it is a texture thing to help the cabbage break down.

[evalerie]

I like to use the shredding disk of my food processor to shred cabbage. It is lightning-fast and also kind of fun to do. I think stores also sell cabbage that is pre-shredded, or even shredded and mixed with carrots as "coleslaw mix," but I haven't tried that. I've never heard of rinsing shredded cabbage. Though I've often wondered if just rinsing the outside of a whole cabbage cleans it enough, so I suppose rinsing the shreds could be a way to clean it all over?

There's a recipe for a cabbage pancake that I love, which doesn't use any cheese and doesn't impersonate a pizza. I'd be happy to share the link if you'd like.

[boxofdelights]

I also use the food processor to shred cabbage. Before I got the enormous food processor, I would stack a few cabbage leaves, roll them into a tube, then feed the tube under the knife that my other hand was rocking up and down. I cannot imagine using a vegetable peeler to shred cabbage.

I also just wash the outside of the head of cabbage. It's pretty tightly wrapped, right? And doesn't grow with leaves partly underground like leeks.