Original White House Cookbook

Great care is requisite in cleaning a cabbage for boiling, as it frequently harbors numerous insects. The large drumhead cabbage requires •an hour to boil ; the green savory cabbage will boil in twenty minutes. Add considerable salt to the water when boiling. Do not let a cabbage boil too long — by a long boiling it becomes watery. Remove it from the water into a colander to drain and serve with drawn butter, or butter poured over it. Red cabbage is used for slaw, as is also the white winter cabbage. For directions to prepare these varieties, see articles Slaw and Sourcrout. CABBAGE WITH CREAM. Remove the outer leaves from a solid, small-sized head of cabbage, and cut the remainder as fine as for slaw. Have on the fire a spider or deep skillet, and when it is hot put in the cut cabbage, pouring over it right away a pint of boiling water. Cover closely and allow it to cook rapidly for ten minutes. Drain off the water and add half a pint of new milk, or part milk and cream ; when it boils, stir in a large teaspoonful of either wheat or rice flour moistened with milk ; add salt and pepper, and as soon as it comes to a boil, serve. Those who find slaw and other dishes prepared from cabbage indigestible will not complain of this. STEAMED CABBAGE. Take a sound, solid cabbage, and with a large sharp knife shave it verij fine. Put it in a saucepan, pour in half a teacupful of water, or just enough to keep it from burning ; cover it very tightly, so as to confine the steam; watch it closely, add a little water now and then, until it begins to be tender ; then put into it a large tablespoonful of butter ; salt and pepper to taste, dish it hot. If you prefer to give it a tart taste, just before taking from the fire add a third of a cup of good vinegar. LADIES’ CABBAGE. Boil a firm white cabbage fifteen minutes, changing the water then for more from the boiling tea-kettle. When tender, drain and set aside until perfectly cold. Chop fine and add two beaten eggs, a tablespoonful of butter, pepper, salt, three tablespoonfuls of rich milk or cream. Stir all well together, and bake in a buttered pudding-dish until brown. Serve very hot. This dish resembles caulifiower and is very digestible and palatable. FRIED CABBAGE. Place in a frying pan an ounce of butter and heat it boiling hot. Then take cold boiled cabbage chopped fine, or cabbage hot, cooked the same as steamed cabbage, put it into the hot butter and fry a light brown, adding two tablespoonfuls of vinegar. Very good. FRENCH WAY OF COOKING CABBAGE. Chop cold boiled white cabbage and let it drain till perfectly dry; stir in some melted butter to taste; pepper, salt and four tablespoonfuls of cream; after it is heated through add two well-beaten eggs; then turn the mixture into a buttered frying pan, stirring until it is very hot and becomes a delicate brown on the under side. Place a hot dish over the pan, which must be reversed when turned out to be served. SOURCROUT.