Two ideas for using that big cabbage you bought.
Cabbages will start to disappear from the market soon as the weather warms up, but you might still have some in your fridge and be thinking what to do with it. I have been collecting cabbage recipes all winter long and think it’s one of the most versatile winter vegetables going.
This cabbage and noodles dish is a fuss free, tasty number that takes little time to prepare and comes with the grand name Haluski.
Originally the idea for the Haluski recipe came from Slovakia with the word ‘haluski’ being a type of soft noodle or dumpling. I am betting they came up with this idea exactly how I did… What the heck am I going to do with all this cabbage???
- 150g dried egg noodles, Turkish eriste or packaged short pasta ie bow ties, gnocchetti, etc.
- 3 Tbsp vegetable oil
- About 600g (1/4 large) cabbage roughly chopped, no core / heart
- 1 onion sliced
- 1 tsp sugar
- 200g bacon, sausage, salami or similar cut up into small pieces
- 1 tsp caraway seeds preferably, otherwise use fennel seeds
- ½ cup water
- ¼ tsp salt or more to taste
- Generous amount of black pepper
- Boil a large pan of water with 2 tsp salt for the noodles
- Boil noodles for given amount of time on packet
- Meanwhile, fry onion 5 minutes in oil in large frying pan
- Add sugar and stir
- Add bacon or similar and stir well
- Add cabbage to pan and continue frying another 5 minutes or until soft
- Add caraway seeds, stir
- Add ½ cup water, cover pan and continue frying 5 minutes
- Add drained noodles, stir and cook for 2 mins
- Add salt and pepper as desired
ANY KIND OF NOODLES WILL WORK
I have used German egg noodles here called Spätzle which we found on our recent trip to Greece, in a Lidl supermarket. Oh, how we could do with one of those supermarkets here!! To be able to get our hands on some of these European products, what a treat it would be!!
In fact, however, you can use any noodle or pasta type which you have on hand or prefer.
If you live in Turkey you might like to buy some erişte from your local yufka seller which would certainly go well. Otherwise, bow ties, shells, gnocchetti, etc. all go nicely with this dish.
Just cook them until ‘al dente’ or a little less and absolutely not a minute longer as once you strain them, they are added to the cabbage mixture and heated further.
You use less pasta that in a normal main meal dish with the bulk of the plate being vegetables. So it’s a healthy little number too.
YOUR CHOICE OF MEAT OR PERHAPS NONE AT ALL?
The recipe uses some meat in it, but it is not essential. We only had chicken sausage on hand but was surprised how nice it was, when cooked up. However, you really could put just about any kind of meat with this dish including bacon, ham, smoked turkey, cooked chicken, pork sausage etc. Haluski is very flexible and forgiving.
The meat should be ready to eat before being added to the dish. The chicken sausage in the photo, can be eaten when bought and is used most often as sliced luncheon meat.
Vegetarians could try adding some sliced mushrooms in place of the meat or simply not replacing the meat at all. If you do wish to add mushrooms, I would suggest slicing them and frying in a very small amount of oil.
Once that oil has been absorbed, you can add about 3 tablespoons of water or stock, turn the heat down to medium, cover with a lid and continue cooking until they soften. At this point they can be added to the Haluski dish.
Haluski Börek
We still had more cabbage to get through and I had dropped into my local yufkaci (pastry seller) earlier. This means that I had some yufka pastry in the fridge, begging to be used. You can use puff pastry instead of yufka if that’s easier.
So, after our very successful little haluski dinner the night before, we were ready for a bit more of the same and decided to make Haluski borek.
So this is what we did and I can highly recommend it. It was a cross between a Turkish borek and an Asian spring roll.
- 1 onion
- 2 Tbsp vegetable oil
- 6 cups shredded cabbage
- 2 tsp fennel seeds
- ¾ - 1 cup cubed chicken salami, bacon or desired meat
- ¼ tsp salt
- Red and black pepper
- ⅓ cup chicken stock or water
- 1 sheet of yufka pastry
- Vegetable oil for brushing
- Your choice of sesame, poppy or black cumin / nigella seeds
- Fry onion in the oil till soft
- Add salami or meat and stir for 2 minutes
- Add the cabbage and fennel seeds and stir round
- Add stock or water and cover with lid and let simmer gently until cabbage has totally collapsed
- Add salt and peppers to taste
- Remove from heat and let cool
- Turn on oven to 180C
- Lay out a sheet of yufka and brush with vegetable oil
- Lay the cool mixture along the closer half of the pastry, in one long line
- Gently roll up the dough so there is one long sausage
- Seal the pastry by brushing on a little water and pressing pastry to close along the seam
- Carefully slice into desired serving lengths with a very sharp knife
- Place on greased oven try or silicone mat
- Brush oil on the top of the boreks and scatter seeds of your choice
- Place in oven and remove when golden. About 20 mins.
Puff pastry sheets can sub in for yufka for this recipe. If the sheets are square, cut them in half and use them lengthways. If you wish, you can roll them out a bit thinner or leave them the way you unwrapped them. Up to you.
I hope you have as much fun making them as I did.
Afiyet Olsun!
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