Every other cruciferous vegetable (even though they smell like farts) has had its heyday, becoming wildly, yet confusingly, popular in the restaurant scene.
The shapeshifting, versatile cauliflower shows up on salads, holding its own in tapas plates and as a formidable new member of the vegetable medley lineup (new, because no one steams it anymore, it's all roasted this, roasted that).
Brussels sprouts, once synonymous with unappetizing health food (I mean, have you tried steam-in-a-bag brussels sprouts? It's like eating a waterlogged ball of grass.), once a vegetable that children would chew to pulp, spit in their napkins and bury behind the couch, it's now de rigeur for hip eateries to have a version of this guy on their menus. Someone discovered/remembered that brussels sprouts taste awesome with bacon and that everything tastes awesome flash-fried, and thus, a star was born.
Broccoli, though I love it to death, snuck in on the heels of Cauliflower and Brussels Sprouts. Though delicious, it doesn't hold it's shape as well as cauliflower and it doesn't play well with other ingredients. Eggs, which already smell like farts, getting significantly fartier when paired with broccoli.
But cabbage, cabbage isn't riding on the coattails of anything. Sure, you could be traditional and use it for cabbage rolls, but in my opinion, the absolute best way to eat is is roasted. Roasted long and hot until all the sugars, which turn into farts when you digest them, undergo caramelization, resulting in a crispy, flaky, colorful pile of crunchy, glistening goodness topped with salty, crumbly queso fresco.
Slice your purple (or green) cabbage into very thin wedges, anchored by the stem of the cabbage. Arrange them evenly on the pan and drizzle a little more oil on top. Insert into your preheated oven and roast for 30 minutes, give or take, until the edges are almost burnt but not quite. Remove, salt and pepper generously, toss with crumbled queso fresco and devour.
Similar to potato chips, you won't be able to eat just one; but it's a wildly nutritious vegetable – so why would you stop at one?
xoxo
Maggie