Last week we showed you how to pickle vegetables (and fruit), but cabbage is one of the few vegetables that needs to be pickled differently. To pickle cabbage you don’t need the usual pickling solution, all you need is salt. Yes you read that correctly only salt! Cabbage pickles only with salt and is preserved by the salt so you can enjoy it for years to come - at home I have a few jars from 4 years ago and they still taste great!
This season, take advantage of the versatile cabbage and pickle it so you can enjoy it all year long. We like to include a purple cabbage because it gives the pickled cabbage a lovely light pink colour; it does not improve the taste so if you can’t find any purple cabbages just stick to the green cabbages.
Pickled Cabbage
Makes 2 2 L jars, takes 3 days
1 White Cabbages
1 Purple Cabbage
1 Horseradish
1 Bunch Thyme
Salt and Pepper
2 2 L jars
Remove the outer layer of your cabbage and quickly rinse the cabbage. Shredding the cabbage is not an easy task, the cabbage is thick and tough, however for this recipe you can use a blender to shred the cabbage. Before the cabbage can be blended, it’s best to cut it into smaller pieces to ensure that the cabbage is blended evenly - we don’t want some bigger pieces mixed in with the belended cabbage!
To cut the cabbage into smaller pieces, first remove the core of the cabbage by making incisions starting from bottom of the cabbage at the core. You want the incisions to form a pyramid inside the cabbage since the core is thicker at the bottom and becomes thinner towards the middle. Once you have removed the core, cut the cabbage into four pieces - don’t worry if this is not possible, just try to cut the cabbage into smaller pieces that you can easy manage. Add a few of the smaller piece at a time in the blender - this ensure that the cabbage gets cut evenly. Alternatively you can cut the cabbage pieces into smaller part by hand.
Take a handful of your cabbage and place it in a large pot and sprinkle some salt. Continue adding the remaining cabbage in small batches - don’t forget about the salt! This ensures that the salt ends up evenly on all the cabbage pieces. Let the cabbage rest in the pot for 3 to 4 hours.
Remove the outer layer of the horseradish and cut the horseradish into the size of french fries. Clean the 2 L jars and add some horseradish sticks on the bottom. After the resting time has passed, you will notice that the cabbage is slightly more bendy and easier to work with - plus there’s pink cabbage juice on the bottom that’s really great for pickling. Take some of the rested cabbage and place it in the jars until you fill the jars, top the cabbage with more horseradish and thyme. For the next three days, cover the jars with a small plate and let the cabbage rest some more. In this three days you will notice that the cabbage will release more of its juices. Once the three days have passed, close the jars with the lids and place in a cool and dark place. The cabbage should be pickled by the 1 month mark.
We like to make the cabbage in 2 L jars because over time the juice that the cabbage leaves behind dissapears and this causes the cabbage to dry out - but cabbage keep for years! Click here to find cabbage near you!
– Andreea Nicoara
