This Coconut-Braised Cabbage Is the Perfect December Meal

A few weeks ago Epi’s food editor, Anna Stockwell, was looking through Eleanor Ford’s Fire Islands: Recipes from Indonesia, when she came across a recipe she couldn’t shake. “When I read the beef rendang recipe, I knew I really wanted those flavors. But how could I make it happen with vegetables, for December when I’m feeling a bit meat...overexposed?”

She headed into the Epi test kitchen, inspired by the flavors in Ford’s book, to find out. In beef rendang, the meat is coated in spiced coconut milk; as the liquid from the coconut milk evaporates, the sugars caramelize. Anna thought she could recreate that effect on a meaty vegetable, like thick cabbage wedges.

But first she had to deal with the lemongrass.

Rendang’s warming and complex coconut sauce often features lemongrass. But for a lot of cooks, that’s a non-starter. “Lemongrass can be a real struggle,” Anna notes, echoing what cookbook author Andrea Nguyen told Epi in June. (Nguyen was a little more emphatic about it, calling chopping lemongrass “a pain in the ass.”)

Sometimes Anna will bang the lemongrass with a meat (ahem, kitchen) mallet or the back of a knife before slicing, to help it break down. But in the process of developing her vegetarian take on rendang, she happened upon a better way to deal with the stuff: the blender. The blades of the blender make quick work of the tough lemongrass stalk, and it was easy enough to throw in the coconut milk and the sauce’s other flavor-boosters: the ginger, garlic, turmeric, coriander, and cayenne. Combined, they make the perfect cloak for braised cabbage, which manages to melt down and caramelize at the same time.

Though she loved the cabbage on its own, Anna wanted to be sure the meal felt really satisfying and rich without meat in the picture. She added some chewy tofu, but didn’t want to cut it in cubes: “I learned from Chris Morocco that tearing tofu gives you more surface area for crispness and flavor absorption.” So torn tofu went into the baking dish along with the vegetables and sauce, and it all headed to the oven to get silky underneath and lightly charred on top.

You can spoon it onto a pillow of rice if you want, or skip the starch. But definitely garnish the dish with a sprinkle of crispy toasted coconut chips and a squeeze of fresh lime, so it all winds up bright and cozy, just what we wish for on a cold winter night.

Coconut Cabbage and Tofu With Lemongrass and Ginger

Originally Appeared on Epicurious