Recipe Cabbage and Mint Salad (Malfouf wa Na'na')

[Elawin]

Serves 4 as part of a mezze

Ingredients:

1 white cabbage, very finely shredded
1 garlic clove, crushed (optional)
Sea salt, to taste
Juice of 1 small lemon
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp dried mint
Aleppo pepper flakes, to serve (optional)

Method:

1. Put the shredded cabbage in a large salad bowl.
2. In a pestle and mortar, smash the garlic with some sea salt, then add the lemon juice and olive oil, and whisk together.
3. Pour the dressing on to the cabbage with the mint, and mix well.
4. Season with salt and, if you want to add a little kick to it, some Aleppo pepper flakes.

Notes:

1. Recipe from the book Syria: Recipes from Home by Itab Azzam and Dina Mousawi.
2. This is a very fragrant, palate-cleansing dish, and you may need to adjust the amount of dried mint. I opened a fresh jar of dried mint and found 2 teaspoons was enough.
3. I used chilli flakes instead of Aleppo pepper flakes for even more bite!

 

[Morning Glory]

I'm glad you are putting your prize book to good use! Its good to see dried mint being used. Its often overlooked but actually has a pungency that fresh mint lacks.

 

[Francesca]

This is sort of a "cole slaw " which is a type of cabbage salad and there are uncountable recipes for it ..

This is very lovely and simple ..

 

[Elawin]

I'm glad you are putting your prize book to good use!

Er, er, My prize book was Fresh India.....

 

[Morning Glory]

Er, er, My prize book was Fresh India.....

I lost the plot! It was @Herbie who won a Syrian cookbook.

 

[Elawin]

This is sort of a "cole slaw " which is a type of cabbage salad and there are uncountable recipes for it ..

This is very lovely and simple ..

Coleslaw is cabbage (plus other ingredients) in a creamy, usual mayo-based dressing, Francesca. This isn't.

 

[Morning Glory]

Coleslaw is cabbage (plus other ingredients) in a creamy, usual mayo-based dressing, Francesca. This isn't.

Its interesting because the word coleslaw translates as 'cabbage salad' - the origins are described here. But there is no doubt that the contemporary meaning cold coleslaw is shredded cabbage in a mayo dressing.

The term coleslaw came from the Dutch term koolsla, meaning cabbage salad. The kool part is the Dutch word for cabbage and the sla part is a Dutch abbreviation of the word salade. In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, Dutch settlers flooded into New York, so much so that the city was originally called New Amsterdam. They brought with them their recipe for chilled cabbage salad, which today is a mixture of the shredded vegetable with mayonnaise, salad dressing, sour cream or buttermilk with vinegar, sugar and other seasonings added.

http://www.culinarylore.com/food-history:where-does-coleslaw-come-from

 

[Elawin]

Its interesting because the word coleslaw translates as 'cabbage salad' - the origins are described here. But there is no doubt that the contemporary meaning cold coleslaw is shredded cabbage in a mayo dressing.


http://www.culinarylore.com/food-history:where-does-coleslaw-come-from

What is even stranger is that the Oxford English Dictionary defines coleslaw as
"U.S. Sliced cabbage dressed with salt, pepper, vinegar, etc., eaten either raw or slightly cooked"
with no mention of mayo or an English definition at all, whereas the US site you linked to says "mayonnaise, salad dressing, sour cream or buttermilk", and another site calls it "the quintessential American picnic salad". The Guardian says "Early versions seem only to have used a vinaigrette, but mayonnaise now seems to be the standard dressing, in Britain at least" (https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2012/oct/04/how-to-make-perfect-coleslaw)

Perhaps Francesca is right and we Brits are wrong, but I've never seen anything described as coleslaw here that does not have mayo in it. It must be yet another foodie name that means something different in the UK.

 

[Herbie]

I lost the plot! It was @Herbie who won a Syrian cookbook.

And there are LOADS of cumin recipes to try.

I am not a massive fan of cooked cabbage, but this sounds good. I've had a salad (I think Jamaican) with cabbage and lime that is delicious.

 

[Elawin]

And there are LOADS of cumin recipes to try.

I am not a massive fan of cooked cabbage, but this sounds good. I've had a salad (I think Jamaican) with cabbage and lime that is delicious.

It's a fantastic book, isn't it. That, and Fresh India, together with Rick Stein's India and my 50 year old Indian and Greek cookery books have just about got my food requirements for the next umpteen years sewn up.