A Decadent Vegetable Recipe For A Horrible, Cold January Day

As an omnivore I don’t really have a dog in this fight, but I do find it grating when recipes or restaurants try calling various vegetables prepared in a certain way a “steak.” I imagine this rings true for a section of non-meat eaters too, who perhaps don’t aspire to eat a food that’s being marketed to them a steak, which, again, would be a food they don’t eat. A slab of cauliflower roasted in the oven until it’s gorgeously browned and tender is delicious, but a steak it is not. Same for a portobello mushroom, or half of a butternut squash (I’m a squash aficionado and I find this one particularly harrowing), or celery root, each roasted and seasoned and served in a way that someone took a lot of liberty to call a steak. I went out to a really great Japanese place this weekend and ordered, among other things, a king oyster mushroom “steak,” which was delicious and even looked somewhat like a hanger steak in the way it had been prepared, sliced and plated, but it was also not a steak.

And that’s fine! They don’t have to be steaks. They can just be really delicious braised, slow-roasted, marinaded, and/or seared vegetables. But I say all of this to preface that although some creative food people might try to call the recipe I’ve tested and which I’m about to recommend for you a “steak,” it’s not a steak. You know it and I know it. It’s just a recipe for really fucking good roasted cabbage that tastes so decadent it might become a staple in your recipe rotation. I’m not going to pretend it’s anything other than that.

Not my cabbage, but maybe someone else’s? Photo by Heather Ford on Unsplash

I have been eating significantly more cabbage in my late 20s than I ever anticipated I would. Not just in its fermented forms (although kimchi and sauerkraut have become fridge staples for me, particularly throughout the pandemic), but in stir-frys, stews and soups, and even in one of its best states — nestled under a chicken you’re roasting in a cast-iron skillet, so it gorgeously absorbs all the schmaltz and simultaneously softens and caramelizes. But even without a whole chicken this recipe works just as nicely — rosettes of cabbage nestled into a skillet or cocotte, along with a mixture of butter, Worcestershire sauce and dijon mustard slathered onto each round, roasted in the oven yield a shockingly decadent, cozy weekday working-at-home lunch or dinner. The outer leaves also take…