Of Cabbages and Eggs

The time has come,” the Walrus said, “to talk of many things,
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing wax; Of cabbages and kings…”

— Lewis Carroll

The Cabbage is a fine vegetable and said to have a host of medicinal properties. Interestingly the Egyptians believed that eating a lot of this divine vegetable before drinking would help them imbibe more without experiencing any of the side effects.

However it was with no such intention that I thought of preparing cabbage for dinner. And Cabbage is one of the easiest veggies to make. In tamil it is called "Muttai kose" (Muttai in tamil means Egg). Though the etymology of this beats me it got me started off on wondering what would happen if I actually mixed Cabbages and Eggs.

Well so hear goes my version of me can cook:

Go to Thoms bakery in Cox town and pick up a packet of freshly cut cabbages (serves 3 people). Take a 1/4 of this and dump it in a vessel. Keep the remaining back in the fridge making sure you close the pack with a spare rubber band from the collection on the kitchen window sill which you keep just for occassions like these.

Soak the cabbage in water and get that frying pan on to the fire. Douse the pan with oil - use sunflower oil; good for the heart - so says my mom. Take a handful of chopped onions. I have this contraption which my cousin in Chennai got me. Some 50 bucks it costs and chops onions into fine pieces in 5 minutes. All you have to do is peel it, cut it into four pieces, put it into that contraption.

Well enough of promoting the onion cutter. Now saute the onions in the oil for about 2 minutes- since you cant monitor this using a stop watch and stuff unlike the five star chefs just let it simmer till you get bored watching it. You can add some salt and a chilli (either red or green whichever you fancy). Just imagine you are Godzilla tearing a hapless human apart and have a go at the chilli tearing it into three pieces.

Now take the washed cabbage and dump it into the pan. Take 2 cups of water and add to the pan and close it with the designated lid. This is important. Many times I have used just about any lid which my hands can reach and those lids have ended up in the bottom of the pan along with the food.

Well... this is how you prepare cabbage and this is where you pop off from the kitchen to watch Mallika Sherawat dance a duet on TV.

But not for Cabbages and Eggs.

Now instead of Ms. Sherawat, you take an egg out of its cosy corner inside the fridge and unceremoniously crack it open emptying its contents into a clean vessel. Take that fork of yours which you keep to eat cup noodles and beat the egg into a fine batter. Add some salt and pepper and continue to beat it. Forget Mallika Sherawat on TV and keep peeping into the pan.

As the water boils and evaporates the cabbage gets cooked. Towards the end dump the whipped egg into the pan and using the wooden spatula nicely mix it into the cabbage.. 2 to 3 minutes of this - just an arbitary calculation as I didnt have a stop watch to record the time. Generally when all the water has evaporated, the egg is also nicely cooked and you can take it off the fire.

And there you have the yummy Cabbages and Eggs or the C and the E for short. Goes absolutely soooper with Rice and Vatha Kulambu. All this hardly takes 30 minutes so you can drop in any time to savour the C and the E.

And now since we have had the C...we can see if the Egyptians were right after all! ;-)