[rhythmic music] - [Sheri] I have a little secret.

I am a bit smitten with cabbage.

Surprised?

You shouldn't be.

It's delicious, nutritious, and amazingly versatile.

For many, only coleslaw comes to mind, but cabbage has a sophisticated side that we tap into today.

We are cooking a luxurious cabbage soup accompanied by some really good cheese toast.

And did I say slaw?

I sure did.

You are going to love this special chow-chow slaw.

It's so flavorful, and one that you'll want to make again and again.

Up next, we are cooking with a literal rockstar.

Joe Kwon of The Avett Brothers.

- I went ahead and I quartered the cabbage, and then, cut those quarters in half again.

- [Sheri] Joe is a great cook.

He is always up for trying and making new things.

Together, cross country, we make my deconstructed cabbage rolls.

It's a keeper.

[upbeat music] I'm Sheri Castle.

I write cookbooks.

I write for food magazines.

I cook, I teach, and I collect stories.

And my favorite stories are the ones behind our best-loved home recipes.

Is it time to shuck 'em?

- It's time to shuck 'em, cheers.

- Oh, that's awesome.

[Sheri] I will go out and explore from the ground up, the best ingredients that go into some of our most-beloved family recipes.

It's all about the food, the flavors, and finding the key ingredient.

[upbeat music] Cabbage is like a good friend, comforting and always there when you need it.

It's nutritious and serves as a key ingredient for many dishes, but with all the cabbage varieties out there, you may wonder how to use it in your favorite meal.

We've got you covered today, with some great recipes, and a cook-along with our friend who's a rockstar, both in and out of the kitchen.

- Hi, I'm Joe Kwon from The Avett Brothers, I play cello.

So I was born in Inchon, South Korea, and immigrated to High Point, North Carolina in 1981.

High Point is a very small town known for one thing, and one thing only, and that's the International Furniture Market that happens twice a year.

My parents were not surrounded by a massive Korean community whatsoever.

And they owned a dry cleaner, which was right on Main Street in downtown High Point.

And we're friends with a lot of these furniture designers because they would get their laundry done.

It was super weird because we'd have these internationally known furniture designers come over to our house in High Point to have Korean food with my mom.

[Mom laughing] I would love to make kimchi, but sad to say, I haven't learned how to make it yet from my mom.

One of my favorite comfort foods is stuffed cabbage.

We're gonna be doing a grilled cabbage that has more of like a deconstructed cabbage roll feel to it, and then, putting the ragu, you know, what would normally be inside the cabbage roll, with a tomato sauce on top.

We've combined the meats, turned it into a sauce, grilling the cabbage, and then, using that as kind of a sauce on top of the cabbage, over a bed of rice.

[upbeat music] - All right, so what have you done on your end?

Let's talk about the cabbage.

- Yeah, I went ahead and I quartered the cabbage, and then, cut those quarters in half again.

So now, I'm left with eight wedges of cabbage.

So I'm just gonna take my cabbage and throw 'em right over some embers.

We've had 'em going for a couple hours now.

- I'm ready to put mine on the grill, but I'm gonna confess right now.

I was a little worried about turning them.

I am using the grill basket, where I have locked up my cabbages, my cabbage wedges, brushed them with a little bit of oil, and hit 'em with some salt and pepper.

And now, I'm gonna put 'em on the grill.

- We're gonna just hit these with some heat until they wilt.

And then... - Exactly.

- You want a little wilt and a little bit of light char around, you know, around the edges.

My family was actually cabbage farmers for a number of generations.

You're bound to have some cabbage memories too.

If you grew up in a cabbage intensive household, as many people did, what do you remember?

- I grew up eating my mom's kimchi.

She made kimchi, I'd say once every two weeks, and she would make about 100 pounds at a time, crates of Napa cabbage that my mom would break down, salt, wilt, season, assemble, pack these huge one gallon jars of kimchi, and then, give them to different families.

It was like another extension of her cooking for people.

- Yeah, I grew up making, my family making sauerkraut, you know, malolactic fermentation, just salt, water, thyme.

We had like all families that do great fermentation, there's science, then there's ritual, and then, there's habit.

Part of our ritual was is that we would hold the shredded cabbage under the water with this rock.

And I still to this day, call it the magic pickling rock.

And I don't know if that makes a difference, but I'm the 4th generation to have the rock.

I'm not gonna say that the rock is not important.

I'm now the keeper of the rock, and if they say put the rock on top, I'm in on it.

- You know, it's funny, 'cause my mom had a rock as well.

- See, maybe we're onto something.

- [Joe] Hey, look at that char on mine.

- Oh, that's awesome.

- That's a good char.

And I went ahead and made the ragu with the, I use turkey, but I have the ragu with, what, tomato sauce, onions, turkey, a little bit of cinnamon, and salt, and brown sugar.

- And some raisins of all things.

- And raisins, that's right.

- So where I got the idea for that, 'cause I certainly, my grandmother would never have put lemon or raisins in her filling or anything like that, but it reminds me of almost Middle Eastern and a little bit of Mediterranean flavors to have that warm spice.

And then, that hit of that acidic lemon in the dill at the end, it just perks it up a little bit.

And I too, have made mine ahead.

So the way I normally do it, but people can do it however they want, is to put a little rice, and then, some of the cabbage, and then, a little bit of that sauce on top.

You mentioned you put turkey, I use turkey also, but I've also taken the cabbage cores that a lot of people discard, but I actually think they're one of the best parts, and finely chop 'em with a bunch of mushrooms, and make a meatless filling to go on top of this, as a variation too.

[upbeat music] - There you go, Sheri, what do you think?

- Oh, look at that.

- That's like a mountain.

Goin' in for the bite.

- [Sheri] All right, you go first.

- At first, I didn't know how the cinnamon was gonna play, 'cause when I first put it in, it was just way too prevalent.

But after cooking it down, that's nice.

- I love what this does to the cabbage.

It's sweeter, and then, you get that little char, and then, the smoke, and the contrast of textures.

There's the crispy edges, and then, the tender part.

I think that sometimes the way to make people fall back in love with a vegetable is to give it to 'em a way they've never had it, so that they have to pay attention.

And doing this, you know, grilling, or just changing it in some way, it makes people pay attention to cabbage.

There's a lot of charm in this.

- For sure, that's delicious.

- And I look forward to the day we're sitting at the same table again.

- [Joe] Yeah, have a good one.

- Thank you.

- Bye.

[upbeat music] - We're making a luxurious cabbage soup with a side of crunchy, really good cheese toast.

[upbeat music] You know, sometimes sitting down to a bowl of homemade soup feels like having a meal with one of your best friends.

It's comforting, it's there when you need it.

We're gonna make a luxurious, but simple cabbage soup today, and serve it with a side of really good cheese toast.

It's gonna be one of your new comforts, a promise.

So the secret to any great pot of soup is to build flavor at each stage.

It's not tedious, but it's thoughtful.

The first thing I'm gonna do for this great cabbage vegetable soup is I'm gonna soften up what is called a mirepoix.

All that means is finally chopped carrot, and onion, and fennel in this case, instead of celery.

We want this just short of a paste because they're gonna dissolve in the liquid and make this great flavorful base.

Now, when you're softening vegetables, it's a great idea to always add a big healthy pinch of salt.

Salt makes the vegetables release their own delicious juices, and they'll get tender and release lots of flavor.

Salt is a magic first step.

Now, once this gets a good sizzle going on it, what I'm actually gonna do is put on the lid on the pot, and let some steam build up in there, that will further soften these vegetables, and encourage them to release their flavor.

All in all, it's gonna take about five minutes.

[pot sizzling] So it's been about five, six minutes.

And what I have now, is these vegetables have become very tender.

They've not dissolved, but they almost turned into a sauce.

And now, it's time for my tomato paste.

This is a trick I learned years ago.

It is a great thing to do when your sauteing vegetables.

Clear a little spot in the middle of the pot, and then, add some tomato paste.

Now, this is gonna give some flavor, but what this tomato paste is really doing is adding, believe it or not, some sweetness to these vegetables.

And when you stir it in and get it against the bottom of the hot pot, it is quickly caramelizing.

And it's going to add a tremendous amount of flavor to the base of this soup.

It's a great trick.

You can do this with other soup recipes as well.

So when it's really well-coated and you can hear the sizzle, it's time to put in the stock.

And you can easily keep this soup vegetable only, and use a good high quality vegetable stock.

Or you can use chicken stock, whatever you have on hand.

And give it a good stir.

If there are any little bits of your vegetable mixture on the bottom of the pot, you're going to want to loosen these.

And now, it is time for our friend, cabbage, the star of this show.

Now, today, I'm using a Savoy cabbage, the one that has the wrinkly leaves, but any kind of cabbage is going to work.

A familiar green cabbage.

You could even use Napa cabbage, but I don't think that red cabbage is a great option for this recipe.

It's gonna turn your soup kind of a ruddy color, that's gonna be hard to explain.

This is shredded, and we're gonna add it in handfuls.

And it's gonna look like it's too much.

But as this cabbage cooks, it shrinks down a little bit, and you're gonna find the amount is just right.

Now, before I put on the lid, let me tell you another secret weapon when it comes to flavor.

I have Parmesan cheese rinds.

What is that?

If you've ever seen a big wheel of Parmesan in the store, you'll know that the outer edge is really hard.

It's too hard to grate up or to eat, but there is still flavor in here.

And we're gonna drop these cheese rinds into the broth.

It's like a cheese soup bone, it's meatless, but it's gonna add salt, and flavor, and richness, and umami.

And these things cost almost nothing.

They're in the grocery store.

They're a wonderful addition, a surprise flavor in a pot of vegetable soup.

Chunk 'em right down in there.

Put your lid back on, leaving it ajar just a little bit.

And we're gonna simmer this until the cabbage is tender.

There's a sweet spot in there.

You don't want it crunchy.

You don't want it too soft.

When it's almost like al dente pasta, the cabbage is perfect.

And then, we'll move on to our final stage.

You know, maybe the only thing better than a hunk of bread with a bowl of soup is some really good cheese toast.

And this is good.

Cheese toast is simple, but there are a couple of tricks that will make yours better than ever.

What I've done is, while my soup is simmering, I have toasted the bread.

Just put a little butter on it, and a little salt and pepper, and pop it in the oven till it starts to be good and toasty.

And now, I'm gonna mix together my topping for it.

I have here, a mixture of coarsely, shredded cheese.

You can use cheddar, Gouda, some Parmesan, whatever cheese you have on hand.

And I'm gonna add a little bit of mayonnaise, and a little bit of good, crunchy mustard.

And stir this together just enough to help the cheese stick together a little bit.

So once that is good and mixed, and moist, you wanna put it on top of your bread.

You know what?

Your fingers are probably the best way to do this.

So you don't have to spread it out too much because the heat of the oven is gonna help with that.

But you wanna make a little mound, pretty much an equal amount on each kind of bread.

You can use one kind of bread or a mixture, something that'll be good and crunchy, and hold up to all this cheesy goodness.

At this point, you have a choice.

You can go ahead and toast it, or it's happy just hanging out on the tray like this, till you finish your soup.

And then, while everybody is ladling into their bowls, stick this under the broiler until it's brown and bubbly, you've got really good cheese toast.

[upbeat music] So it's been about 20 minutes.

My cabbage is just on the edge of tender, and we're gonna add the next great ingredient, which happens to be beans.

Cabbage and beans are wonderful classic combination.

And I'm using some cooked white beans.

Now, you can cook these from scratch, or you can use canned beans.

Either one is going to be just fine.

If you use canned beans, you wanna drain them, but not rinse them.

I'm also going to add in some fresh thyme.

We're gonna start building up the herbs in this soup.

Now, like I said, cabbage and beans are a match made in heaven.

But what if you don't have any beans?

You can put something else in here.

You could put pasta, even little raviolis, rice.

It's your soup, go do what makes sense to you.

[upbeat music] So now, our soup is ready to go to the table.

Just a couple of more little bits of flavor, right at the very end.

The first thing I'm gonna add is some fresh basil.

The warmth of the soup is gonna release the aroma and give this wonderful burst of flavor.

I'm also going to add a good pinch of crushed red pepper flakes.

You can do this to taste.

Some people are gonna want a lot.

Some people are gonna want just a little.

You can also serve these at the table and let each person doctor their own bowl if you want to.

And last, but far from least, is a little bit of good vinegar.

Vinegar is a soup's pow, it's their secret weapon.

The trick is to add just a little splash, just enough to perk up the flavors without making it taste sour or vinegary.

And there you have it.

A wonderful pot of aromatic, delicious, comforting, sophisticated cabbage soup.

This will hold in your refrigerator very well for two or three days, and warm it up.

And each time you do, give it a little taste.

It might need a little salt.

It might need a little pepper.

This soup hits the spot.

You know, when you have a pot of soup, and you are in the mood for soup, there may be no more satisfying meal.

This one is full of flavor, and aromatic goodness, and rich broth.

It is so delicious, yet surprisingly simple.

And we made a rockin' crispy cheese toast.

I'm going in.

[toast crunching] This is a keeper, you're gonna love this.

I can't wait for you to make it.

[upbeat music] ♪ It's ready ♪ ♪ Yes, it's ready ♪ ♪ So just let it all begin ♪ When I was a little girl, I remember seeing farmers and gardeners planting rows of those little leafy cabbage seedlings, and then, waiting for those big round cabbages to rise up out of the ground.

Cabbage has almost a magical role in some children storybooks.

When I was a little girl, I remember hearing people say that new babies were found under cabbage leaves.

And I thought that that was a fine start for us all.

Figuring out how to use this bounty of cabbage, well, to me, that's just plain fun.

[upbeat music] You are gonna love this colorful, crunchy coleslaw that I make that's based on chow-chow.

It's gonna change your coleslaw game.

Chow-chow is a beloved condiment that people put on foods that need a little color and crunch.

Coleslaw, we know we can count on it.

It's a reliable side dish, but can you imagine the two together?

That's what we're gonna do in one great, new recipe.

So one of the reasons that cabbage is a great vegetable is it keeps very well.

Matter of fact, people used to be able to put it in the root cellars all winter long.

They also made things out of it, including this great pickle-like relish known as chow-chow.

That was the inspiration for this great coleslaw, which also keeps really well.

So what I have here, are some simple vegetables.

I have shredded cabbage.

I have sweet bell pepper.

I have a green bell pepper.

I have some green tomatoes, and some red onion.

We're gonna put that together in a bowl and salt it.

So, so far, this is looking like any great slaw, right?

Here's where the secret comes in.

If you've ever had trouble with slaw that was a little bit too soupy, that looked like it maybe had milk in it, what you can do is salt the vegetables ahead of time, pretty heavily.

This is about a good tablespoon of salt.

And I'm gonna toss it in with the vegetables using my hands.

And then, we're gonna put it in a colander and let it sit overnight.

You don't have to do a thing, just let it sit.

But what's going to happen is these crunchy vegetables are going to absorb the salt and become seasoned.

They're also going to let go of their excess juices so that you're left with these amazingly crisp, perfectly seasoned vegetables.

So this is the vegetable mixture after a night's rest in the refrigerator.

It may not look like a lot has happened, but let me show you what was going on behind the scenes.

Can you believe how much moisture drains out of these vegetables?

Can you imagine if what the recipe would be like if you left all this excess liquid in there?

So this is a great thing to remember for all of your coleslaw recipes.

If you salt the vegetables, let 'em drain, it's gonna turn out better than ever.

So now, I'm gonna make this simple dressing for the slaw.

It's almost like a marinade.

There's not a speck of mayonnaise in this recipe, just this wonderful, bright vinegarette.

So I have some unfiltered cider vinegar.

Granulated sugar.

Get this sweet and tangy thing going on.

And now, I'm gonna add my spices.

This is whole yellow mustard seed.

Then, I have coriander seed, celery seed, dry mustard.

Some people call it powdered mustard, I call it dry mustard.

Some ginger.

And turmeric, it's gonna give it a wonderful golden color.

Just stir this together, bring it to a boil, stir only until the sugar dissolves.

It'll take about a minute.

[rhythmic music] So now, I'm gonna add this hot liquid to my vegetables.

It may look like there's not enough, but every drop of this is packed with flavor and these amazing aromas, it's all you need.

Then, take your trusty tongs and toss, toss, toss.

Keep really stirring it around so that each strand of vegetable gets a little bit of the vinegarette, and that's it.

More plastic wrap on top, put it back in the fridge to chill completely.

That's gonna take at least four hours up to overnight.

As it chills, every one of those vegetables is gonna pull in that delicious dressing.

So this recipe makes a lot of coleslaw, and that's intentional because this recipe keeps for days.

It actually gets better and better.

You can keep it in one big bowl, but I like to take it down into smaller portions, the amount I'm likely to use at one meal.

So this is gonna keep in your refrigerator for at least a week, but here's the best part of all.

This recipe also keeps in the freezer.

Yes, you can actually freeze this coleslaw up to three months, and when it thaws, it's gonna be as crunchy, and colorful, and as delicious as ever.

And if you've put this in a jar, this tempered to be canned, it'll go in your freezer.

It's going to be just fine.

I love this.

You can serve it as a chow-chow relish or as a coleslaw.

You can put it on anything that needs a bit of perk, color, crunch, and a good conversation.

This is chow-chow coleslaw.

[bright music] I wanna show you something fun, something I have had for many years, it actually hangs on the wall.

This is a cabbage sack that came from my family.

I'm the 3rd generation to have this.

This is what farmers used to use to take cabbage to market.

And if a customer bought enough, they'd use it to take their cabbage home.

Very few of us are buying 50 pounds of cabbage at once anymore.

So I wanna show you a way to pick out a perfect cabbage from a farmer's market or a grocery store.

Cabbages keep a really long time.

It's one of their major charms.

And people used to put them in the root cellar where they would stay for up to six months.

We're gonna store ours in the refrigerator.

Some cabbages are small, this one is almost individual size, all the way up to enormous cabbages that could feed, I don't know, an army or something like that.

If you can buy a cabbage with these beautiful outer leaves still left on it, you should do that.

This is Mother Nature wrapping up the cabbage to hold in the moisture that's gonna make it last a lot longer.

Another thing to do is to flip it over and take a look at the end.

A good cabbage should have a solid end.

It might be a little discolored, but it won't have cracks, or fissures, or big splits.

It's gonna look healthy.

It's a sign of a really great cabbage.

Now, what if your cabbage doesn't have leaves left on it?

Sometimes in the grocery store, they will go ahead and pull off some of these outer leaves.

That's not a problem, but what you'll want to do in that case is to store it inside a bag.

I love these permeable vegetable bags, but even one of those bags that hangs in the produce department is gonna be fine.

This little bit of extra insulation is going to hold the moisture in your cabbage.

Put this in the crisper drawer of your fridge, and it's gonna last for weeks.

Cabbage is one of the few vegetables that is just as good raw as it is cooked.

It's easy to keep on hand.

Keep a cabbage, it'll make your day.

[bright music] I hope you know you don't have to be a rockstar to cook cabbage like one.

It's such a wonderful vegetable.

It's delicious, it's crazy nutritious, and it's versatile.

Let cabbage be the key ingredient in your next recipe.

Well, I appreciate your willingness to try to do this on the grill.

And I feel like I must explain this.

So when I was a kid and they would clear out the cabbage fields in the big family garden at the end of the season, they would set it on fire to kind of burn off the top stuff and activate what was underground.

And we would gather up the last of the vegetables, whatever we had, potatoes, onions, the heads of cabbage and bury them in the embers.

And I just always have this association of sort of smoky, charred cabbage.

So Joe, one of the things I think that makes you such a great home cook is, is you understand that food has a story and a sense of place in context and all that.

And I'm glad that you share that with cabbage, and that you were willing to give this a go.

- Oh, I love the fact that you actually brought up cabbage, 'cause at first, I was nervous.

I'm like, "Oh my God, "what do I think of when think of cabbage?"

I think on my mom, of course, and what a great memory to have is to think of my mom in an occurrence like this.

But to make a dish that I'm familiar with, but in this different way, has been a really fun experience for me.

So thank you very much, Sherri.

- You're very welcome, I will cook with you anytime.

[upbeat music] For all the recipes from the show, visit our website.

It's where you'll find the key ingredient for a perfect time in the kitchen.