My Lunch Can Beat Up Your Lunch!

Bento Recipes: Stir-fried cabbage

 
   
 

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I first made this because, well, there's a lot of cabbage in one head, and you can only make so much okonomiyaki. What else could I do with it without the cooking stinking up my home?

Stir-fried cabbage is quick, easy, tasty, and guaranteed non-smelly. Cut up as much cabbage as you want to cook into coleslaw-like strips. Put some olive oil into a pan - you don't need much, a tablespoon per two cups of cut-up cabbage is a good place to start - and heat it to medium. (Not as hot as you'd use for regular frying; olive oil has a lower burning temperature.) When it's hot put the cabbage in. If it sizzles it's hot enough. Stir it around quickly to coat all the cabbage with olive oil. Then stir-fry it until the green parts turn translucent, but before they go limp. It should take just a few minutes. This can be eaten as a side dish, or as a bed for stir-fried meat or other items.

If you are using bok choy (Chinese cabbage), then first cut the greens away from the white "rib." Cut the rib into thin strips. Fry the rib strips first, and add the greens a few minutes later. That way the rib gets cooked and the greens don't get wilted. Of course, you can also just throw the rib away, but I don't. (And usually I use regular green cabbage, but sometimes I have bok choy around because another recipe called for it specifically.)

Cabbage-and-egg nest - One cute serving idea is to make a bird's nest, meaning a boiled egg or two in a bed of stir-fried cabbage. You can even soak the peeled egg in water with blue food dye to give it that robin's egg color.

Stir-fried red cabbage - just like regular stir-fried cabbage, but you use the red stuff. This is good if you want to add an intense splash of color to your lunch.