Charred Cabbage with Brown Butter

Cabbage costs almost nothing and is treated accordingly, which is a shame, because a wedge of it seared black on both faces and dressed in brown butter is as good as any vegetable dish I make.

Two techniques, both simple, both easy to rush.

The core stays in

Cut the cabbage in quarters straight down through the stem so each wedge keeps a piece of the core. Two things happen. The wedge holds together in the pan and can be turned in one piece, and the core — which most recipes tell you to cut out — softens and sweetens into the best bit. Removing it gives you a pan of loose leaves that steam rather than sear.

Black is not burnt

Five minutes on one face without moving it. What you are after is a mottled, genuinely blackened surface, not an even golden one; those dark patches are where the flavour that makes this dish worth making comes from. Cabbage has enough sugar to take it.

The splash of water and the lid at the end are what get heat into the middle without the outside going further.

Brown butter, with a stopwatch

Butter is about sixteen per cent water and one per cent milk solids. Over heat the water boils off — the loud foaming stage — and then the milk solids toast. Toasted, they smell of hazelnut and taste of almost caramel. Twenty seconds later they smell of burnt and taste of it.

The lemon juice is the brake. It drops the temperature immediately and stops the reaction, and it also cuts the fat, which at eighty grams for four people it needs.

Capers

Dry capers in hot butter fry, blister, and go crisp and intensely savoury. Wet ones cool the butter and stay soft and vinegary. It is worth the thirty seconds with a piece of kitchen paper.