From: Jeff Smith, The Frugal Gourmet on Our Immigrant Ancestors: Recipes You Should Have Gotten From Your Grandmother (New York: William Morrow, c1990)


Red Cabbage (Rotkohl)

Serves 6-8 as a vegetable course.
Red cabbage is a common dish in Germany, and it has become a common dish here in America. It is rich and inexpensive, just the thing for our immigrant German ancestors.

It is served in older German communities as a vegetable or, if you include good German bread, as a main course. It all depends on the amount of money that Grandma had to spend for dinner. It still does!

6 thick slices bacon, diced 4 tablespoons red wine
1 yellow onion, peeled and sliced 4 tablespoons distilled white vinegar
2 heads red cabbage, about 3 pounds total 4 tablespoons brown sugar
3 apples, cored and thinly sliced (do not bother to peel) 1 teaspoon salt
1 cup chicken stock, or use canned 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

In a 8-quart stove-top covered casserole sauté the bacon until clear. Add the onion and the sliced cabbage to the pot, along with the apples. Sauté, uncovered, until the cabbage begins to collapse a bit.

Add the remaining ingredients and cover. Cook over medium heat, stirring now and then, until all is tender, about 1 hour.


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