Kapuska

The cabbage is cooked until it loses its structure completely, which takes about three times as long as feels right.

Beef. Not vegetarian — contains beef.

Ingredients

• 1.2 kg white cabbage, shredded
• 400 g minced beef
• 2 onions, finely chopped
• 3 tablespoons tomato purée
• 1 tablespoon hot red pepper paste
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 600 ml hot water or stock
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons Aleppo pepper flakes
• salt and black pepper

Method

1. THE CABBAGE IS COOKED UNTIL IT LOSES ITS STRUCTURE COMPLETELY, which takes about three times as long as feels right. An hour and a quarter, lid on, over a low heat. Cabbage at twenty minutes is tender and still cabbage -- separate shreds, a faint crunch, a fresh green smell. Cabbage at seventy-five minutes has collapsed into something soft and sweet and faintly jammy that no longer reads as a vegetable at all, and the whole pot has become one thing rather than meat and cabbage in sauce. Nearly everyone takes it off at the point where it looks done, and that is the point before this dish starts.
2. IT IS SHREDDED COARSELY, ABOUT A CENTIMETRE WIDE. Not finely. Fine shreds disintegrate into mush well before the hour is up; centimetre ribbons survive long enough to go soft and sweet while still being visible.
3. NO WATER GOES IN FOR THE FIRST TWENTY MINUTES. The cabbage goes into the pot with the fried meat and nothing else, lid on, and sweats in its own liquid -- which it gives out in quantity. Only once that has mostly cooked away does the hot water go in. Added at the start, the cabbage boils rather than sweats and stays watery and pale.
4. THE MEAT IS FRIED HARD FIRST, UNTIL IT IS PROPERLY BROWN. Over a high heat until it has stopped releasing liquid and has started to catch and stick. It is the only browned flavour in a dish that then cooks gently for an hour; put in grey, there is nothing savoury underneath the sweetness.
5. THE PEPPER PASTE IS WHAT STOPS IT BEING BLAND. A tablespoon of hot red pepper paste, fried with the tomato purée until the colour darkens. An hour of slow cooking makes cabbage sweet, and without something sharp and hot against it the result is cloying.
6. IT IS BETTER THE NEXT DAY AND IS MEANT TO BE. Made ahead and reheated, the sweetness and the pepper come together. This is the rare pot where the reheat is an improvement and not a compromise.
7. The olive oil heated in a large heavy pot and the onions softened 8 MINUTES.
8. The mince added over a HIGH heat and fried hard 10 MINUTES, until properly brown and beginning to catch.
9. The tomato purée and pepper paste stirred in and fried 2 MINUTES until darkened.
10. The cabbage, shredded about 1 cm wide, added with the cumin. NO WATER.
11. Lid on and sweated over a medium-low heat 20 MINUTES, stirring now and then, until it has given out its liquid and that has mostly cooked away.
12. The hot water added, seasoned, and brought back to a bare simmer.
13. Cooked, LID ON, over a LOW heat for 1 HOUR 15 MINUTES.
14. TESTED: the cabbage should have collapsed entirely and taste sweet, with no crunch and no fresh green smell. If it still tastes of raw cabbage it needs another half hour.
15. Scattered with Aleppo pepper. Better still the next day.

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 Turkey · All recipes