(no subject)
Jul. 14th, 2020 08:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Thank you to everybody who voted to tell us what to do with our cabbage!
In the end, "Cake Filled With Cabbage" squeaked into the lead (by one vote! a breakneck race!) and so we embarked upon this recipe:

(Transcript:
Shred 1 head cabbage (about 2 pounds), sprinkle with salt, and wrap in a cloth to squeeze out the water. Then cook until brown in 1 cup butter or oil. Saute 1 cup chopped onions separately in 4 tablespoons butter, and mix with the cooked cabbage. Make a yeast dough [see Doughnuts, page 138], and roll it out into 2 sheets. Grease a baking sheet with butter or oil. Lay one sheet of dough on the baking sheet, cover with the cabbage, and cover with the second sheet. Pierce it all over with a fork, allow it to rise, brush it with the egg [wash], and bake about 45-50 minutes.)
We were a little nervous about the fact that it wants the same dough as the book's doughnut recipe, but in fact this turned out really quite good! Based on a tip from a Midwestern friend of Slavic origin, we have tentatively identified it as a recipe-translation-to-Yiddish-to-English from pagash, or 'Slavic pizza.'
Biggest challenges: it would have been SO nice if the recipe defined an oven temperature but we realize this is possibly asking too much of 1938
Would we make again: yeah actually! but probably with a higher vegetable-to-butter ratio in the filling ....
Would we ask the internet what 1938 recipe to make again: it turned out pretty okay this time so stay tuned! I definitely do want to experiment further in this cookbook at some point.


Doughnut dough! It doesn't actually have any sugar in it, it seems that in 1938 you got your doughnuts sweet by putting a lot of jam in the middle, which is why you can also use it for things like cabbage pizza. In other news, we were attempting to halve the recipe but we did not remember to halve the yeast so everything occasionally got very big. Fortunately
genarti has watched a lot of bake-off so she knows how to slow a rise. We also had to add quite a bit more flour than the recipe suggested to get it to stop sticking to everything, so we ended up probably with more dough overall than we really should have ...


"A WHOLE STICK of butter?" said Beth. "...well, I understand more about your grandmother's kugel recipe now."
"We don't technically have to use the entire stick," I said. "We could halve it, like we do my grandmother's kugel recipe."
"No," said Beth, bravely, "we're following the recipe! This is a historical recreation!"
"Okay," I said, "in that case, don't forget, I am also going to need two more tablespoons of butter, separately, for the onions."

(I don't know why they specify that the onions and cabbage must be cooked separately and THEN mixed together. But again! historical recreation!)


Assembly! I could probably have gotten it into a more symmetrical shape if I had tried. But I did not try.

The final product!

The side salad is also made out of cabbage ... and we still have a quarter cabbage left ....... but I think honestly whittling down 3/4 of a cabbage in a week is FAIRLY RESPECTABLE, all things considered and all other vegetables delivered.
In the end, "Cake Filled With Cabbage" squeaked into the lead (by one vote! a breakneck race!) and so we embarked upon this recipe:

(Transcript:
Shred 1 head cabbage (about 2 pounds), sprinkle with salt, and wrap in a cloth to squeeze out the water. Then cook until brown in 1 cup butter or oil. Saute 1 cup chopped onions separately in 4 tablespoons butter, and mix with the cooked cabbage. Make a yeast dough [see Doughnuts, page 138], and roll it out into 2 sheets. Grease a baking sheet with butter or oil. Lay one sheet of dough on the baking sheet, cover with the cabbage, and cover with the second sheet. Pierce it all over with a fork, allow it to rise, brush it with the egg [wash], and bake about 45-50 minutes.)
We were a little nervous about the fact that it wants the same dough as the book's doughnut recipe, but in fact this turned out really quite good! Based on a tip from a Midwestern friend of Slavic origin, we have tentatively identified it as a recipe-translation-to-Yiddish-to-English from pagash, or 'Slavic pizza.'
Biggest challenges: it would have been SO nice if the recipe defined an oven temperature but we realize this is possibly asking too much of 1938
Would we make again: yeah actually! but probably with a higher vegetable-to-butter ratio in the filling ....
Would we ask the internet what 1938 recipe to make again: it turned out pretty okay this time so stay tuned! I definitely do want to experiment further in this cookbook at some point.


Doughnut dough! It doesn't actually have any sugar in it, it seems that in 1938 you got your doughnuts sweet by putting a lot of jam in the middle, which is why you can also use it for things like cabbage pizza. In other news, we were attempting to halve the recipe but we did not remember to halve the yeast so everything occasionally got very big. Fortunately
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)


"A WHOLE STICK of butter?" said Beth. "...well, I understand more about your grandmother's kugel recipe now."
"We don't technically have to use the entire stick," I said. "We could halve it, like we do my grandmother's kugel recipe."
"No," said Beth, bravely, "we're following the recipe! This is a historical recreation!"
"Okay," I said, "in that case, don't forget, I am also going to need two more tablespoons of butter, separately, for the onions."

(I don't know why they specify that the onions and cabbage must be cooked separately and THEN mixed together. But again! historical recreation!)


Assembly! I could probably have gotten it into a more symmetrical shape if I had tried. But I did not try.

The final product!

The side salad is also made out of cabbage ... and we still have a quarter cabbage left ....... but I think honestly whittling down 3/4 of a cabbage in a week is FAIRLY RESPECTABLE, all things considered and all other vegetables delivered.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-15 01:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-16 12:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-15 02:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-15 02:32 am (UTC)If I had to choose between the two, I would definitely call it calzone rather than pizza. It also makes me think (
no subject
Date: 2020-07-15 05:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-16 12:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-15 03:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-16 12:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-15 03:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-16 12:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-15 03:37 am (UTC)That looks delicious. I would absolutely make it for myself and housemates. The butter doesn't even seem disproportionate; an entire cabbage goes a long way.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-15 04:13 am (UTC)The stick of butter is for only half a cabbage, though. We halved the recipe; the original wanted a full cup of butter.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-16 12:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-16 05:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-15 05:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-16 12:19 pm (UTC)(I also don't know if the trend had reached Eastern Europe at that point; there's a family story about my grandmother being presented with Jell-o for the first time upon her arrival in the UK, and being convinced it was a small living creature. Though this also could just have been the fact that it hadn't hit the Jewish community because of the aforementioned dietary constraints.)
no subject
Date: 2020-07-17 08:06 am (UTC)(small living jello creatures sound like a delight! if slightly macabre and necromantic.)
I'm also mildly curious about the cabbage soup with milk. Is it...sour creamy?
no subject
Date: 2020-07-15 07:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-16 12:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-15 09:14 am (UTC)... also I hope the recipe just assumes that everyone puts salt and pepper in everything, because the concept of this whole thing without salt is terrifying to me. Unless the butter is salted, but even then I think it would need a couple of pinches more.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-16 12:23 pm (UTC)I also have this hope ... I did not actually add pepper, but I decided to interpret "sprinkle the cabbage with salt" extremely generously and apply at several instances lest I had not sprinkled the cabbage with enough salt to begin with, I think that was essential.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-15 09:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-16 12:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-15 11:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-16 12:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-15 12:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-16 12:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-18 12:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-18 12:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-18 12:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-15 01:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-16 12:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-16 02:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-15 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-16 12:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-16 04:03 pm (UTC)“La torta” also often refers to a specific kind of sandwich that is in some cases closer to this sort of pastry-bread, and people will use the anglicism “el sándwich” or “el emparedado” for, say, a club-type sandwich.
(Ah, my Romance linguistics degree comes in handy after all!)
no subject
Date: 2020-07-18 12:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-15 09:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-16 12:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-17 03:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-18 12:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-17 10:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-18 12:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-19 06:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-19 09:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-20 01:46 am (UTC)Anyhow. I made both a cabbage version and a potato and scallion version (it should've been chives. I looked at the huge block of frozen-together chives I have in my freezer, went "nope, that's too many at once" then proceeded to chop all of two bunches of scallions and put them in anyhow, so really I have no idea what I was doing).
I feel like I would prefer both just straight up calzones or just straight up pierogies and that this weird middle ground is not an improvement? Not bad, though. I'm glad you enjoyed yours! :)