One of the most common dishes, stewed cabbage, is also one of the most beloved and respected in our everyday cuisine. It can be used as a side dish, as an independent dish, and also add potatoes, rice, beans, meat and sausage if desired. In addition to the fact that the products for its preparation are practically worthless, it also contains many vitamins. And the time during which stewed cabbage is cooked with potatoes, beans, meat or simply without everything is not so great.
If you decide to diversify the classic stewed cabbage, for example, potatoes or rice, you need to start with the preparation of the cabbage itself: it is stewed for a longer time than any other vegetables or even meat.
First you need to wash and chop cabbage. Remember that the thinner the straw obtained, the less time you need to prepare the dish.
After this, vegetable oil is poured into the pan, chopped cabbage is laid out (if there is a lot of it, you can spread it in parts, waiting for the lower layer to be slightly cooked and the cabbage will decrease in volume) and begin to fry over low heat, stirring constantly to avoid burning.
To make the stewed cabbage with potatoes especially tasty, after about fifteen minutes of frying, chopped onions and carrots grated on a coarse grater are added to the pan. Each determines the amount of onion and carrot for himself: someone likes a sweet carrot or onion aftertaste, while someone prefers not to interrupt the natural taste of cabbage.
Then everything is fried for about ten more minutes, after which water is added and stewed for half an hour (depending on the desire to get a harder or softer cabbage consistency).
At this time, you can peel the potatoes and cut them into small pieces. Many experienced housewives are advised to try cabbage before putting chopped potatoes into it: the cabbage should be almost ready.
After that, stewed cabbage with potatoes continue to be cooked together for about another twenty minutes - until the potato softens.
Before the end of the stew, salt the dish and add black pepper and other spices as desired.
So that a dish such as stewed cabbage with potatoes does not bother your household, you should slightly modify it.
So, in particular, stewed cabbage with beans enjoys special children's love .
The recipe for this dish is almost identical to that described above, but with one change: instead of potatoes, you will add beans to an almost ready cabbage.
Beans for this dish are prepared in the classical way: they leave it overnight in water for swelling. Then the water is drained and the beans begin to cook in clean water. Beans are also boiled until fully cooked - about an hour.
After that, cooked beans, salt and pepper to taste are added to the cabbage stewed until cooked.
All this is stewed for another fifteen minutes. By the way, some prefer to reduce cooking time and use canned beans, which taste almost does not differ from cooked at home.
If you don’t have any beans at hand, you can safely cook such a dish as stewed cabbage with rice.
The principle of cooking can be left the same as when cooking cabbage with beans, that is - boil rice separately and then add it to the finished cabbage.
However, it’s better to drop rice and stew the dish closer to the end of braising the cabbage until cooked. Time should be calculated taking into account that rice is usually ready after twenty minutes.
In the same way, you can add meat, minced meat, sausage, eggs, zucchini, paprika or any other ingredients to the stewed cabbage, depending on your imagination and taste preferences.