Cooking Cabbage

The smell of cooking cabbage, which few people like, comes from various sulphur compounds. All vegetables contain and give off substances of this type, but those in cabbage (and some related brassicas) are usually copious and pungent. In particular, cabbage contains a moderate quantity of ‘mustard oils’ (isothiocyanates), which are what give mustard, horseradish, and onions their characteristic ‘bite’. The taste is quite noticeable in the raw leaves.

One way of reducing the sulphurous smell is to stir-fry cabbage sliced into thin strips in the Chinese manner. The coating of hot oil seals the surface and reduces the emanation. For the same reason more flavour is retained, while the texture is appetizingly crisp.