If you’re familiar with my work you’ll know that in just about every meal that I eat I include “The Purple Cabbage Stuff” as a side dish. It’s that beautiful purple stuff on all the plates. See here or here. Well, this week I decided to try and make it all by myself. I looked online at a million red cabbages (can you believe it’s not called purple cabbage?!), asked some Israelis and tried to decipher the Hebrew on the label of the packaged stuff I buy. In the end, I invented my own hybrid recipe that can safely be called “The Purple Cabbage Stuff.” Here it is:
First thing you’ve got to do is get the cabbage. Yummy. How could you call that red? It’s clearly purple. Next, chop it up into tiny little strips as much as possible. Don’t mince it, just chop it up super fine. Do the same with a sweet onion and combine them in a bowl:
Do the same thing you did to the onion (destroy it!!!) to an apple. This is what you could call the secret ingredient.
This is where things really get saucy! Squeeze a whole lemon and add the juice to the mix. Check out this cool Israeli lemon squeezer that everyone seems to own many of… It has little pegs that catch the pulp and seeds. It works brilliantly.
Next add in a couple scoops of yogurt and make sure it is plain yogurt (or Greek Yogurt as some people call it). Add a comparable amount of mayonnaise, salt, pepper, a bit of sugar and you’re good!
Mix it all up before serving (or don’t if you want to make a really funny dinner party joke). And voila- you have the infamous Purple Cabbage Stuff that Israelis love so:
The question then remains: How does it hold up against the store bought stuff? Well, it tastes a bit more cabbagey, which I personally love because I love cabbage (my penchant for it has even become quite famous in certain circles). It’s also a bit more crunchy, which again, I love.
I hope you love it as much as me!
Aaron Strick is a Masa participant studying at the University of Haifa, one of Masa Israel’s 160 programs.
