antioxidant red cabbage and sweet potato curry – about $1.00 per serving

All this time, I didn’t know the stuff I liked was good for me! Let’s see, red cabbage and sweet potatoes are world-champion antioxidant sources…and ginger may ward off the development of cancer cells. Whew!

Well, anyways, it has been a while since I had any red cabbage, so, I thought I’d take a whirl at it. And I made curry.

Red Cabbage and Sweet Potato Curry

• 1 head of red cabbage($1.99);
• 3 sweet potatoes (I used the Jersey variety – almost 3 lbs @1.99/lb = $5.73);
• 2 medium yellow onions (about a pound – $1.53);
• 1/2~3/4 lb of ground beef (I got extra lean – well, that was not exactly frugal! about $4.00!);
• 1.5 cubic inches of peeled ginger (pennies);
• 3 tablespoons of curry powder (pennies);
• dashes of ngouc mam – fish sauce (pennies);
• 1/2 cube of beef bouillion cube (about a quarter); and
• vegetable oil (pennies).

Mince the ginger and chop the onions in a medium hot saute pan/skillet with the vegetable oil. Sweat the ginger and onions well. Then add the curry powder. Brown the beef. If you get something other than extra lean ground beef, you might want to brown it separately, then drain the fat, then add it back to the onion-ginger-curry mix.

At this point, I transferred the mixture into a larger saucepot – you might use a Dutch oven or other heavy enameled pot to limit dishwashing. Dissolve the beef boullion cube with the fish sauce in a little water – less than 1/4 cup. Incorporate that solution, mixing well with the onion-ginger-beef.

Slice the sweet potatoes. I went with 1/4″ discs, but if I had to do it over again, I’d do larger blocks. Biting into the potato then seeing the flash of gold surrounded by the purpling from the cabbage is very pretty. Mix the potatoes in. Slice the cabbage into 1/2 or 1″ strips. Add 1/2 of the cabbage in, after the temperature of the pot recovers from the potatoes. Add the second half of the cabbage when the potatoes are almost done. You will get a variety of textures.

Serve on brown rice. This dish is quite gingery. And, the potatoes, onions, and cabbage all conspire to form a mild sweetness that complements the savoriness of the fish sauce and bouillion. Enjoy!

P.S. I recommend eating this while listening to some Patsy Cline – preferably, “I Fall to Pieces.”