Marcella Hazen’s Cabbage and Rice Soup

If you aren’t familiar with Marcella Hazen’s recipes you should sit down and give her a Google. Her recipes are simple and use everyday ingredients and the dishes you create are almost always more than a sum of their parts.

This soup is no exception. It cooks for at least 1 1/2 to 2 hours and it becomes almost like risotto-but it’s soup. The cabbage collapses and is sort of silky sweet.

You will get all the vegetables you need to make this in your share this week. You’ll also need some broth or stock and rice.

Here is a list of what you need and the amounts. I forgot to take a picture of the olive oil and vinegar. You probably have everything you need in your pantry.

Marcella Hazan’s Rice & Cabbage Soup

1 cabbage about 2 lbs, shredded or sliced very thin into bite size shreds (I used about 3/4 of this cabbage)
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup olive oil (yes, 1/2 cup)
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar (I only had cider vinegar)
4 – 6 cups vegetable or beef stock (I had 4 cups chicken broth in the freezer so I used that)
2/3 cup rice
2 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup fresh grated parmesan, plus more for serving
Salt and pepper

Start with 1/2 cup of olive oil and diced onions in a large pan with a tight fitting lid. It seems like a lot of oil but that is part of the magic of this dish. The oil cooks down differently than water or broth.

Cook that until the onions are translucent.

Add the shredded cabbage and toss it until the oil covers everything evenly. I forgot to take a picture of that. It filled up the pot but quickly collapsed down to look like this.

Now add the vinegar and some salt and pepper and cover it and simmer it on your lowest setting for 1 to 1 1 /2 hours. You should see and hear a little liquid simmering. If you don’t think it is enough add a couple tablespoons of water. I had to move my pan a little off my burner because it was simmering a little more than I liked.

Check and stir it every 15 minutes or so and see if you need to add a few tablespoons of water. I had to add water a couple of times. I think late season cabbages are a little more dry that early and mid season cabbage so you will probably have to add a little water.

This is how it looks after an hour.

Add the stock and rice. Make sure you taste this and add some salt or pepper or more vinegar if you need to, I added a little more vinegar. Remember you add some butter and parmesan cheese at the end so don’t worry if you taste and think it needs something, it does. Simmer this for at least 20 minutes or until the rice is done.