Masala Lab: The Science of Indian Cooking

by Krish Ashok

But cabbage is not too different from the onion, in the sense that it is mostly watery but packs a ton of flavour molecules which can be unlocked with the slow application of heat. If you are patient, you can, in about 30 minutes, brown and caramelize cabbage into something way more delicious than steamed cabbage. Here’s a quick recipe for caramelized cabbage sabzi: Caramelize the cabbage separately while you make an onion, ginger, garlic, chillies and spices base. Add the browned cabbage to this and quickly mix it before turning the heat off. Temper with mustard/chillies. Caramelized cabbage has more flavour than onion because it has more glutamates, which lend a umami (savoury) flavour to the dish. This idea will be explored in Chapter 5.

Cooking cabbages