Camellia Panjabi: Quick Stir-fried Cabbage

Serves 4 as a side dish

Vegetarian

This recipe is from Vegetables the Indian Way by Camellia Panjabi

Kadai bandh gobhi

The Gujarati neighbours at our family apartment in Mumbai often made this quick- cooked cabbage.

It’s such a simple way to enjoy this vegetable – like subtly spiced coleslaw. I have added sliced onions to the original Gujarati recipe, for added sweetish flavour. I thought it would be nice to incorporate the two colours of cabbage, both for colour and for the range of nutrients.

Vegetables

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Method

To shred the cabbages, first slice them in half.

Put each half flat side down and with a long sharp knife shred as finely as you can. Then separate the shreds with your fingers.

Heat the oil in a large kadai or wok (or a deep frying pan). Add the onions, green chillies, mustard seeds and ginger, wait for 10 seconds, then add the curry leaves or basil and the sugar and stir.

Add all the shredded cabbage and 1 minute later stir, then keep stirring continuously so that all parts of the cabbage are exposed to the heat of the pan and the spices. Add ½ teaspoon of salt. In 4 minutes the cabbage will soften. Take the pan off the heat and continue to stir the cabbage in the hot pan until you achieve the amount of done-ness you prefer. Add the lime juice and stir.

The cabbage is quite nice even before the completely soft stage, and some people prefer it this way.

You can garnish with shredded coconut, toasted sesame seeds or toasted pine nuts, or just with chopped coriander.