Red cabbage for the celebration

Ingredients for 6 servings:

• 1 ½ kg red cabbage
• 2 onions
• 50 g lard or goose fat
• 2 bay leaves
• 4 cloves
• salt and pepper
• 3 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 4 tbsp rice
• 6 tbsp currant jelly
• n. B. sugar
• 3 apples
• 3 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• ⅛ liter of water

Instructions

Working time approx. 25 minutes; Total time approx. 25 minutes

Remove the outer leaves from the red cabbage. Wash the cabbage, quarter it, and remove the stalk. Then cut it into very fine strips. Peel the onions. Finely dice one and stud the other with the bay leaves and cloves. Peel, core, and dice the apples. Season well with salt, mix, and drizzle with balsamic vinegar. Tip: Marinate the red cabbage overnight in a mixture of half red wine vinegar and half balsamic vinegar—but 2 hours is sufficient. Melt the goose fat and fry the diced onion until light yellow. Add the red cabbage and sauté. Add salt, sugar, currant jelly, the studded onion, rice, and 1/8 liter of water and simmer for about 1 hour until tender. Season to taste with salt, sugar, and vinegar. Variation: Instead of the water, you can also use white or red wine, or red grape juice. You can vary it a bit to suit your taste, for example, using red wine vinegar or balsamic vinegar instead of regular vinegar, and replacing the blackcurrant jelly with cranberries (or raspberry syrup). I used to use lard for traditional reasons, but I’ve switched to oil for nutritional reasons; it doesn’t affect the flavor at all – clarified butter works fine too. Otherwise, always make the red cabbage a day or two in advance, because it tastes three times better reheated. This isn’t a typo, by the way – the rice will overcook, and the red cabbage will then achieve the perfect binding (without flour).