Pickled red cabbage

One of my family’s favourite additions to a cold cuts meal is pickled red cabbage, it’s not like a sauerkraut, it’s much more tangy and crunchy. It’s a rich ruby colour and a little goes a long way, it’s cheap to make and is ready within a couple of days, of course the longer you leave it, the better it gets flavour wise.

Ingredients

1 red cabbage

4 litres of white vinegar

3 - 4 tablespoons of cider vinegar 3 cups of white sugar

Food colouring (optional)

Method

Put on a pair of plastic gloves and chop your cabbage or shred finely, whichever you like texture wise best (The gloves will save your hands from becoming purple then a blackish colour from the cabbage).

You can wash the cabbage under cold water and then drain thoroughly, I also dry mine with lint free tea towels until it’s perfectly dry.

Clean and sterilize your jars and warm them, either by hot water or in the oven in a baking tray for 15 mins at 350 degrees or rinse them with cold water and microwave for 45 seconds whilst still wet, they come out piping hot and ready to tip out any water and pack the red cabbage in.

Once the jars are ready, I pour the hot vinegar mixture over the cabbage and screw on the lids. There, done, nice and easy, as the vinegar cools the lids seal themselves, I keep mine in the fridge. Its relatively cheap and very tangy. All ready for Christmas, nice to give as gifts too. Enjoy!

Next in a large saucepan, put your vinegar and sugar and bring to a boil, stirring now and then; make sure all the sugar has dissolved. Add the food colouring to make it purple if using, I do, otherwise the vinegar bleaches out all the colour from the cabbage and it turns a sort of grey colour, not very appealing.