Warm Red Cabbage Salad with Sumac Onions

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Cabbage is one of my favorite ingredients, which I realize might be a bit surprising. I feel like cabbage gets a bad rap. People tend to love it shaved raw in salads or towering atop pork tonkatsu but it’s far from crave-able. Most people associate cooked cabbage with limp, odorous soup or as a component of the forever polarizing boiled dinner.  But a head of cabbage is always a good thing to have on hand. It has a good shelf life, a single head can be stretched across multiple meals, it’s crisp and crunchy raw, and buttery when cooked. If you’re not so sure about that last part, allow me to show you the light via this Warm Red Cabbage Salad. This dish will dispel the smelly cooked cabbage myth and replace it will a food memory you’ll want to hold on to. So let’s get started!

This recipe is loosely based on a braised red cabbage dish my grandmother used to make as a side to her roast pork. Her version had dried red currants, apple cider vinegar, and well, that’s all I can remember. She never wrote it down. So this dish is not faithful but it is very much in the spirit of a childhood favorite. Today’s dish features red cabbage and fennel braised in a heady concoction of pomegranate juice, red wine vinegar, brown sugar, and dried mustard served over garlic-kissed yogurt and topped with vibrant sumac onions. Oh, and there’s some dried cranberries in there and they become irresistibly plump after an hour or two of braising. So much to love about this dish!

The first thing we’re going to do is set the sumac onions in motion. This a very simple process. Slice a red onion in half. I like to select a smaller onion because you’ll be shocked at how large a batch even a wee one will generate. Shave the onion nice and thin on a mandolin. As always, I recommend wearing a safety glove for this step. This is particularly important when slicing a vegetable that is on the smaller and rounder side. And when you get close to the end of the onion, don’t be a hero. Stop shaving when you have a nub and save the tips of your fingers. I don’t want this recipe to be responsible for any ER visits. 

Place your onion shavings in a bowl. Add a minced clove of garlic, some sumac, salt, and lemon juice. Toss everything together and leave the mixture to sit at room temperature. Once the cabbage is done and all the other salad components are prepared, your onions will turn a vibrant fuschia and taste amazing.

With the onions underway, we can move on to the cabbage. I’m only using half a head of cabbage because I live in a two-person household. That half-head of cabbage will feed the two of us for two or three meals. And after two or three meals of anything, we probably won’t want to see it again. So while it’s nice to cook in bulk, I do like to keep it within a reasonable limit. People get bored and food is entertainment as much as it is nourishment. If you have more people to feed, by all means, double the braising liquid and chop the whole head of cabbage. 

You don’t have to chop the cabbage finely. A coarse chop is perfect. The ribbons of cabbage will have ample time to cook down to their optimal buttery softness. We’re going to do the same to a small head of fennel. I love fennel here because it adds a strong note of anise to the finished dish. It gives the cabbage a little more dimension and complexity than it would have on its own. And finally, we’re going to chop an onion into half moons and thinly slice a couple of cloves of garlic. There isn’t much point in mincing the garlic since we’re going to braise it into buttery oblivion anyway.

Heat oil in a large cast iron skillet and add the onion. Sauté with a little salt until translucent. Add the fennel and cabbage and toss to coat in the oil. Once the cabbage has wilted a little, pour in the pomegranate juice, red wine vinegar, brown sugar, and dried mustard. Bring everything up to a boil and reduce to simmer. Stir in the dried cranberries, cover, and simmer for an hour and a half. 

When the cabbage has entered the last fifteen minutes of its cook time, make the garlic yogurt. This is so simple that it almost hurts to explain. Add a minced clove of garlic to a cup of yogurt. Try to grab a yogurt that is 3% milk fat or higher. I went with 5%. Add a little salt and stir everything together. And yes, that’s all it takes to make the yogurt. I realize this salad has three separate components but when they’re this simple to put together, it’s hard to complain. 

Now, let’s plate our Warm Red Cabbage Salad. You can go about this any way you prefer. I do think it looks most fetching with the yogurt on the bottom, followed by the braised cabbage, with the sumac onions as the finisher. But choose your own adventure. Garnish your salad with pomegranate arils and fennel fronds and serve immediately. 

And that’s everything you need to know about this Warm Red Cabbage Salad. A vision in purple and pink, this salad brings a whole lot of complexity and style to the dinner plate. 

Enjoy!