Recipe no. 362 from Jean-Baptiste Reboul's La Cuisinière provençale (1909), page 176.
Ingredients
- curly cabbage
- salt pork
- onions
- leaves from the heart of the cabbage
- bread
- leftover meat
- parsley
- garlic
- broth
- egg yolks
- bacon fat
- carrots
- salt
- pepper
- spices
- oil
Preparation
- Preparing the cabbageTake a curly cabbage, remove the core and the tough green leaves, wash it well, take out the middle by turning a small knife all around; blanch it for 5 to 6 minutes in salted water, drain it and let it cool. Then separate the leaves, removing the ribs. Season with salt, pepper and spices; put the leaves back on top of one another starting with the largest; arrange them so that the ribs face outward.
- Preparing the stuffingChop 200 grams of salt pork, put it in a saucepan with 2 chopped onions and a few leaves from the heart of the cabbage, also chopped; let it all cook down, add a piece of soaked bread, leftover meat from the day before chopped with parsley and garlic, then a ladleful of broth and 2 or 3 egg yolks; work it for a few minutes over the heat, season and set aside; you should obtain a fairly firm stuffing.
- Stuffing and assemblingPut the stuffing in the middle of your cabbage, bring the edges back to the centre to reshape it roughly as it was originally, and hold it in that shape by crisscrossing kitchen string around it.
- CookingThus prepared, place it in a saucepan on the bottom of which you will have put thin strips of bacon fat, onions and carrots in slices. Set it over the heat; when the vegetables begin to brown, moisten with half water, half broth, almost to the top. Make sure the saucepan is not too wide, there should be no more than about 4 centimetres of gap between the cabbage and the sides of the saucepan; season it; place an oiled sheet of white paper on top, cover the saucepan and cook slowly for at least three hours, preferably in the oven.
Reboul's text
Take a curly cabbage, remove the core and the tough green leaves, wash it well, take out the middle by turning a small knife all around; blanch it for 5 to 6 minutes in salted water, drain it and let it cool. Then separate the leaves, removing the ribs. Season with salt, pepper and spices; put the leaves back on top of one another starting with the largest; arrange them so that the ribs face outward.
Chop 200 grams of salt pork, put it in a saucepan with 2 chopped onions and a few leaves from the heart of the cabbage, also chopped; let it all cook down, add a piece of soaked bread, leftover meat from the day before chopped with parsley and garlic, then a ladleful of broth and 2 or 3 egg yolks; work it for a few minutes over the heat, season and set aside; you should obtain a fairly firm stuffing.
Put the stuffing in the middle of your cabbage, bring the edges back to the centre to reshape it roughly as it was originally, and hold it in that shape by crisscrossing kitchen string around it.
Thus prepared, place it in a saucepan on the bottom of which you will have put thin strips of bacon fat, onions and carrots in slices. Set it over the heat; when the vegetables begin to brown, moisten with half water, half broth, almost to the top. Make sure the saucepan is not too wide, there should be no more than about 4 centimetres of gap between the cabbage and the sides of the saucepan; season it; place an oiled sheet of white paper on top, cover the saucepan and cook slowly for at least three hours, preferably in the oven.
Small Provençal glossary for this recipe
Reboul writes in French: no Provençal word appears in this recipe, apart from the dish's name itself. The table below gives the Provençal equivalents of the words used, in mistralian spelling, translated by Lingua Nostra. Each form is attested in our Provençal-English dictionary; click to open the entry.
| Provençal | English |
|---|---|
| blanqueja | to blanch |
| chapla | to chop |
| reveni | to cook down |
| atrempa | to soak |
| oubra | to work |
| besuscla | to brown |
| bagna | to moisten |
| couire | to cook |
Source: Jean-Baptiste Reboul, La Cuisinière provençale, Marseille, 1909, recipe no. 362, page 176. Public domain. Transcription, formatting and Provençal glossary by Lingua Nostra.