Yasemin's Kitchen: Red Cabbage Salad

Red Cabbage Salad

In the summer of 2009, we went on a 3 day bus trip with our friends from high school to Amasra, a small coastal town by the Black Sea. It was a trip to remember! Making new memories with old friends is always very special.

Amasra on the Black Sea Coast

Historical Amasra Houses

Amasra

When it comes to food, every region has its local specialties. In the black sea region, a small fish called hamsi, known as the European anchovy, is the main ingredient for many delicious dishes. Hamsi is used in soups, pilafs, many main dishes like hamsi-balls similar to meat-balls. There’s hamsi in everything but ice-cream. Whereever we went, we had great food on this trip, especially good corn bread and delicious salads. Picture below was taken at a restaurant. This is mainly a red cabbage salad, if you can see the cabbage of course. It was creatively garnished using greens (purslane and dill), turnips and carrots as daisies on top. I had to share this photo.

Red Cabbage Salad - Where's the cabbage?

In Turkey, red cabbage is used more frequently than regular cabbage in salads. Unlike coleslaw, there’s no mayonnaise in the recipe, making it a very healthy and tasty choice for a salad. It is very easy to make, a few sprigs of greens (mint, parsley) will make it enticing enough.

Ingredients:

½ head of red cabbage, finely shredded
Juice of 1 lemon (use half first, add the rest if not enough)
1 tablespoon salt
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Directions:

Start with 1/2 head of cabbage. Cut it in half. Remove white stem portion. Shred thin with a knife or a food processor. In a bowl, combine cabbage with salt. Gently knead the mixture allowing cabbage to soften, releasing some of its juice. Rinse and drain well in a colander.

In a bowl combine cabbage, lemon juice and olive oil. Toss the salad, transfer to a serving dish. Garnish with a sprig of mint or parsley.