Cabbage days

When we were looking for an apartment in New York, my husband used to say he would never live in a building that smelled like cabbage.

Clearly a New Yorker of an earlier era, he remembered the days when poor families would buy a gigantic and inexpensive head of cabbage and boil it, slaw it, steam it and generally find all kinds of ways to make that inexpensive green feed the family for a week. One method they probably didn’t try: roasting and caramelizing it.

When Warren Norstein started serving his slow-roasted meats at Big W’s Roadside Bar-B-Q in Wingdale, he wanted to serve traditional greens on the side. But, he said, “I got annoyed at the grocery store one day because collards were 26 cents a pound. Cabbage was only 19 cents a pound so I bought a head of cabbage instead.�

And instead of throwing that head of cabbage into hot water (and letting all the nutrients leak out), he decided to roast it.

The result was simple and delicious. Here’s how to do it: Core your cabbage and cut it into cubes that are about 2 inches each. Toss them in a large roasting pan with some olive oil and butter and some salt and pepper and roast them until some leaves are wilted and others have turned brown and caramelized.

My  husband, as noted above, does not generally like cooked cabbage. But he loves roasted Brussels sprouts (which are, of course, a miniature version of roasted cabbage) and he understands that cruciferous vegetables are hugely healthy and not only protect you from all kinds of cancers; they also provide a whopping 90 percent of your daily dose of vitamin K — which helps your blood to clot properly.

It makes sense that Norstein would want to roast his greens, since he’s already roasting chicken, pork and beef in his massive smokers on the side of the road in Wingdale. But, he noted, that’s one of the beauties of this dish.

“You just slide it in the oven while your meat is roasting,� he said. “You always have two shelves in the oven. Use one for the roast and the other for the cabbage.�

Cabbage is also another unexpected source of vitamin C, like lettuce.

I’ve never tried growing a cabbage, but it seems that many other people have. Seek out cabbage heads at, say, the Saturday morning market in Millerton.

Experiment with a few different varieties of roasted cabbage, green or red. Norstein promises that they all work well. If you want to get fancy, toss your roasted cabbage with some rice vinegar or some Dijon mustard.