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Jim Dixon wrote about food for WW for more than 20 years, but these days most of his time is spent at his olive oil-focused specialty food business Wellspent Market. Jim’s always loved to eat, and he encourages his customers to cook by sending them recipes every week through his newsletter. We’re happy to have him back creating some special dishes just for WW readers.
Despite the ubiquitous, mostly digital presence of almost every kind of food, including the strange regional specialties most of us would never have heard of, you really don’t see much about food that’s been smothered. But in the American South, and especially in south Louisiana, everything from shrimp to steak to pork chops to potatoes to nutria to okra starts in a black cast iron or well-used aluminum Magnalite pot where it browns nicely in some kind of fat before aromatic vegetables and something liquid is added, the lid goes on, the heat goes down, and it emerges later tender and delicious. Most cooks would just call it stovetop braising.
The technique is widely used among the Creole and Cajun communities, often described using the French étouffée, especially when crawfish are involved. While sometimes it’s just onions doing the smothering, the classic approach is cooking the so-called trinity (onion, celery, bell pepper) until the Maillard reaction between amino acids and sugars starts to make the tasty compounds called melanoidins that provide the distinctive flavor of browned food. Then the pot gets covered, the flame turned down, and smothering does its tasty work.
Some with more tender sensibilities may object to the word’s more sinister meaning, but more than enough turkey has been smothered in gravy, and the lucky in kisses, to allow for the benign use. One bite of this smothered cabbage, though, and pleasurable moans quickly drown out any semantic quibbles.
Recipe
1 onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped*
2 stalks celery, chopped
½ green cabbage, chopped (about 2-3 cups)
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon kosher-style sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
Red pepper to taste
1 cup water or broth
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
*If you don’t like green bell peppper, use an Anahiem, poblano, or even jalapeño so you get the same vegetal flavor.
In a heavy pot with a lid, cook the onion in the olive oil over medium heat until it starts to brown, about 25 minutes. Add the pepper and celery and continue cooking until they are very soft and beginning to color, another 10-15 minutes. Add the cabbage, garlic, and seasonings; cook, stirring regularly, for another 15 minutes or until the cabbage begins to get soft.
Add the water, cover, and reduce the heat to a simmer. Cook for at least 45 minutes or until the cabbage is very tender. Add the vinegar, cook for a minute or two, and remove from the heat. Serve with rice and Crystal hot sauce.
