Malfouf Salad

The cabbage is shredded hair-fine and salted so it softens without ever being cooked.

Vegan.

Ingredients

• 1 small white cabbage, about 700 g
• 2 teaspoons salt, for drawing
• juice of 2 lemons
• 100 ml olive oil
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed to a paste with salt
• 2 teaspoons dried mint
• black pepper

Method

1. THE CABBAGE IS SHREDDED HAIR-FINE AND SALTED SO IT SOFTENS WITHOUT EVER BEING COOKED. As thin as a knife will go -- threads rather than ribbons -- then rubbed with two teaspoons of salt and left twenty minutes. The salt draws water out and collapses the cell walls, so the cabbage goes from squeaky and crunchy to tender and faintly translucent while staying completely raw. That is the whole technique and there is almost nothing else to the dish. Coarsely cut and dressed straight away, it is a bowl of raw cabbage in lemon juice.
2. IT IS SALTED AND THEN NOT RINSED, BUT IT IS SQUEEZED. The liquid is poured off and the cabbage pressed in the hands to get more out, but not washed -- the salt that remains is the seasoning. Rinsed, it needs salting again and goes watery; left unsqueezed, the dressing is diluted into a puddle.
3. DRIED MINT, NOT FRESH. Two teaspoons, rubbed between the palms as it goes in. Dried mint is the characteristic flavour here -- dustier, more concentrated, slightly medicinal in a way that suits cabbage. Fresh mint tastes bright and wrong against it.
4. THE GARLIC IS A PASTE AND THERE IS A LOT OF IT. Three cloves crushed with salt under the flat of a knife. In a dish of five ingredients it is doing a quarter of the work, and chopped garlic gives hot pieces rather than an even sharpness.
5. IT IS DRESSED AT LEAST THIRTY MINUTES BEFORE EATING. Unlike nearly every other salad on this table, this one improves on standing -- the cabbage keeps softening and takes up the lemon. It is still good the next day.
6. THE LEMON IS TWO WHOLE LEMONS AND IS NOT TIMID. It wants to be sharply sour; cabbage is sweet and the dish has nothing else sour in it.
7. The cabbage quartered, cored, and shredded HAIR-FINE with a sharp knife.
8. Rubbed with the 2 teaspoons of salt and left 20 MINUTES.
9. The liquid POURED OFF and the cabbage SQUEEZED in the hands. Not rinsed.
10. The garlic paste, lemon juice, olive oil and pepper turned through.
11. The dried mint RUBBED BETWEEN THE PALMS over the bowl and folded in.
12. Left to stand at least 30 MINUTES before serving.
13. TESTED: the cabbage should be tender and faintly translucent, with no squeak. Crunchy means it was not salted long enough or was cut too coarse.
14. Keeps 2 days and is good cold.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Lebanon · All recipes