Eat for Eight Bucks: Creamy Cabbage and Potatoes
This Recipe First Appeared In: What to Eat and Drink on St. Patrick's Day
Shopping List
1 onion: $0.50
1 pound cabbage: $1.99
2 pounds potatoes: $2.00
1 head lettuce: $1.99
Pantry items: Olive oil, butter, salt, pepper, apple cider vinegar, flour, milk, salad dressing
Total cost (for 4 portions): $6.48
I've long wanted to make colcannon, the Irish cabbage-and-potato dish. When winter weather finally inspired me to hunt down a recipe last week, though, none of them looked like the colcannon of my dreams, so I started tinkering. What I came up with was a wonderfully creamy potato dish with a twist; the cabbage made it healthier and heartier and contributed a faint but pleasant acidity, thanks to the apple cider vinegar.
You could certainly make this with leftover mashed potatoes or cabbage. It's the kind of thing I like to eat with a big green salad and nothing else, but if you'd like some protein you could skip the lettuce and make fresh sausage for four for a total meal cost of $8.49.
Creamy Cabbage and Potatoes
About the author: Robin Bellinger is a freelance editor and shameless cookie addict. She lives in San Francisco and blogs about what she feeds her husband and her daughter at home*economics.
Ingredients
- Olive oil
- 3 tablespoons butter, divided
- 1 largish onion, halved and sliced
- 1 pound green cabbage, cored and sliced thinly
- Salt
- Pepper
- 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- 2 pounds potatoes, baked
- 1 1/2 tablespoons flour
- 1 cup milk
- Whole nutmeg for grating (optional)
Procedures
-
1
Preheat the oven to 400°F. Heat a glug of olive oil in a pot (large enough to hold the cabbage) over medium heat. Add 2 tablespoons butter, and when its foam subsides, add the onion slices. Toss to coat with fat and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are soft and just beginning to color, about 10 minutes. Stir in 1 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper and then toss in the cabbage. Continue to stir until the cabbage and onions are completely mixed and the cabbage is beginning to wilt. Pour in the vinegar and a tablespoon of water, cover the pot, and turn the heat to low. Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring once or twice, until the cabbage is tender enough to eat.
-
2
Peel the potatoes and mash them roughly with a fork or your fingers. Melt the remaining tablespoon butter in a 10- or 12-inch skillet over. Add the flour all at once, turn the heat to medium low, and cook, stirring constantly, for about 2 minutes. Stir in the milk, raise the heat a bit, and cook until the mixture thickens, a few minutes. Stir frequently to break up lumps and prevent the mixture from sticking to the skillet.
-
3
Turn the heat off under the skillet and stir the potatoes into the sauce. Season with a few gratings of nutmeg, if you like, and then stir in the cabbage and onions. When the contents of the skillet are thoroughly mixed up, smooth the top with your spoon and bake for 15 to 20 minutes.
16 comments:
Cabbage my way is .59 a pound this time of year and potatoes for brown idaho baking are 1.49 for 5 lbs. So this is an even cheaper side dish.
JerzeeTomato at 9:12PM on 01/26/10
i love the idea of this dish, but am lactose intolerant, so i never buy milk (i do eat some cheese/yogurt). any ideas?
Christina at 9:28PM on 01/26/10
Christina, you could try chicken or vegetable broth instead of the milk.
gummybear at 10:15PM on 01/26/10
I just looked in my fridge at a forlorn head of cabbage....thinking what to do with it. Now I know. Can't wait to try this recipe. Also LOVE Bubble & Squeak!
lamora at 12:20AM on 01/27/10
Holy crap! You pay $1.99/lb for cabbage?! It's been 14 cents/lb here for the last few weeks.
justin h at 1:27AM on 01/27/10
I always laugh at the cost of ingredients....no wonder the cost of real estate is so high in NYC....your food cost 5x as much as here,in NC!!
fatty at 3:17AM on 01/27/10
I live in San Francisco, actually, where you'd think produce would be a somewhat cheaper than NYC, since we're close to the growers. But when I buy organic stuff at my little local store it's pretty expensive. I should check the price of cabbage at the farmer's market; I bet it still isn't 14 cents/pound there, though, that's amazing. My only comfort is to think that I am the living proof that you can eat organic produce and dairy (IF YOU WANT TO, I don't want to force everyone to or anything like that) on a budget in a major metropolitan area. It takes some thought and cooking time but isn't impossible.
I do try to keep it within reason. I once paid $7 for a cabbage at Whole Foods in NYC. !!! I didn't realize it until I looked at the receipt to figure out what had been so expensive...cabbage? I smacked myself on the forehead and never again bought a cabbage there without weighing it first.
Robin Bellinger at 4:04AM on 01/27/10
Christina - just try sauteing onions in oil, steam some cabbage til just tender (it will be incredibly sweet) and add both to basic mashed potatoes with salt and bp (I mean potatoes that have been mashed, riced, or food milled. Without milk or cream). This is a very good shortcut to colcannon. Very clean crisp flavors. very cheap, very quick. I do like to add some butter, but I've eaten it lots of times without.
lemonfair at 8:46AM on 01/27/10
funny to read this this morning, since I'd just decided to use many of the same ingredients to make a soup for dinner -- not milk, but veg broth, and I'll add some celery and a finely chopped leaf of dark green kale for some sparks of color...
elisabeth58 at 12:03PM on 01/27/10
I made this tonight and I cooked down the cabbage with one slice of applewood smoked bacon. This was very good. I thought it was great as a side dish with meat.
JerzeeTomato at 9:20PM on 01/27/10
Wow. This is cheaper to make in Texas, too with cabbage at .30/lb. I often make a variation on colcannon, mashing steamed cauliflower in place of the potato, adding chopped bacon to the mix and topping the whole thing with a drizzle of browned butter. Mmm, I think I even have everything in the fridge.
Larikatz at 12:15PM on 01/28/10
Not only does this look terrific but the picture is gorgeous enough to smell the food! Thanks.
ninotchka at 3:23PM on 01/28/10
We tried this for dinner tonight and it was wonderful. We had it as a side dish with a main course of braised short ribs in a rich chili sauce - a fusion meal. The combination worked really well and the sauce was actually really good on the cabbage/potato dish when they ran together - which leads me to wonder about spicing it up. I also had the thought of adding shredded carrots for color and sweetness. What do you think?
This will be a regular for us!
ninotchka at 7:39PM on 01/30/10
Really good, but I think next time I might add a bit more vinegar to the cabbage. Not a huge nutmeg fan but did use it still felt it needed slightly more flavor. Bacon will be on the agenda, too, but I wonder about garlic?
Buckley at 8:49PM on 02/07/10
i made this but with scalloped potatoes and added chickpeas. delicious!
propermake at 11:01PM on 02/10/10
I don't make colcannon exactly like this, but close. Here's the video:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/videos/irish-colcannon/1345.html
Here's the recipe:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tylers-ultimate/colcannon-recipe/index.html
IndyGal at 5:51AM on 03/04/10