Cabbage and Sausage Casserole

I have no earthly idea what prompted me to make this dish (courtesy of Smitten Kitchen). Generally, I'm not a huge fan of cabbage. Even David was mildly shocked when I told him about the recipe. On top of the cabbage element, there is also the fact that the ingredient list is really short. My success rate with simple recipes is not high. But whatever the reasons, I got to work.

The first step is to blanch thickly cut cabbage.

When the cabbage was done, I drained it into a colander and ran cold water over the chopped leaves to stop the cooking process. I was concerned about how much water the cabbage would retain, even after draining. So, even though the recipe doesn't call for this step, I placed the cabbage on a tea towel (a clean one, of course) and wrung out more liquid.

With the cabbage out of the way, I placed about a third of the cabbage in a buttered baking dish. Bite-sized chunks of sausage were scattered on top, along with some dabs of butter and salt/pepper. 

I repeated the cabbage, sausage, butter, salt/pepper layering and placed the remaining third of the cabbage on top. This too was dotted with butter.

Parchment paper was placed over the baking dish and sealed shut with aluminium foil. The dish was placed in a pre-heated 300-degree oven for two hours.

After two hours, I removed the foil and parchment paper and let it continue to bake for another 30 minutes. There wasn't much water, which was a good thing, but taking the cover off allowed the cabbage to brown up a bit.

Ready to eat!

David sliced up some oat and wheat sandwich bread, and we slathered some Dijon mustard. Yes, the recipe calls for grainy mustard, but I couldn't find any.

We then spooned the cabbage and sausage mixture on top of our bread slices.

The taste combination was surprisingly good. There's almost a sweetness to the cabbage that was balanced by the spiciness of the hot Italian sausage and tang of the mustard. 

This is a hearty meal that is perfect for chilly nights and would also be great at a serve yourself dinner party. 

Cabbage. Who would have thought it could taste that good?