You may have noticed something else on the plate along with the venison and mushroom stew of my previous post. Because the stew was served with a wine from Piemonte, I wanted to serve a contorno (side dish) from that region along with it. Since savoy cabbage works well with meat, red wine, and spices, I decided to make Sancrau alla Piemontese. This dish, that is also prepared in the neighboring region of Liguria, is savoy cabbage braised with wine vinegar, anchovies, garlic, butter, and olive oil. The ingredients are thus quite similar to another well known dish from Piemonte, bagna cauda. Although I haven’t been able to confirm this, my hunch is that the name “sancrau” is a corruption of the German word “Sauerkraut”. The process is a lot faster though: to make sauerkraut you have to allow cabbage to ferment for weeks, whereas sancrau is made by simply braising the cabbage with wine vinegar. The resulting side dish has a nice flavor that while still recognizable as cabbage, is nicer and fresher than that of regular savoy cabbage. Who would’ve thought something this elegant could be made out of cabbage?
Ingredients
For 4 servings
1 savoy cabbage
4 Tbsp wine vinegar
3 anchovy fillets, minced
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp butter
salt and freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
Remove the outermost leaves of the cabbage and discard them. (There is no need to wash the inner leaves.) Remove the tough central rib of each cabbage leave.
Cut the leaves into strips. You should end up with about 500 grams (1.1 lbs) of cleaned cabbage.
Put a large frying pan or casserole over medium heat, and add 2 Tbsp of butter and 2 Tbsp of olive oil.
(The pan should be large enough to contain the raw cabbage with some room for stirring it.)
When the butter has melted, lower the heat and add 3 minced anchovy fillets and 2 minced garlic cloves.
Stir over low heat until the anchovies have melted. Do not allow the garlic to brown.
Add the cabbage and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
Stir until the cabbage is coated with fat.
Add 4 Tbsp wine vinegar and stir.
Cover and cook over low heat, stirring once in a while…
…until the cabbage is tender but still firm to the bite, about 1 hour. Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
The sancrau is now ready to be served as a side for meat. Apart from venison or beef stew, it is also excellent with pork or sausage.
Flashback
Loofah is an Asian vegetable that looks like ridged cucumber with many other names, including terroi, sie kwa, Chinese okra, dish cloth gourd, ridged gourd, sponge gourd, vegetable gourd, strainer vine, ribbed loofah, silky gourd, ridged gourd, silk gourd, torai, turai, buap liyam, buap liam. It has a slightly sweet flavor and a crunchy texture on the outside while the inner part is more tender. I stir-fried it with garlic, chili pepper, soy sauce, and fish sauce.
Stefan's Gourmet Blog 
Piemontese, ma si fa un po’ in tutta Italia. Sempre buono!
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Delicious!
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I can almost taste it.
Our little village is having a choucroute soirée tomorrow so that should be good.
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We generally eat cabbage biside sausages. Very good Stefan 🙂
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This is a nice spin on the humble cabbage. Fancy! I love brassicas.
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Sono ligure, ma non ho mai sentito parlare di questo piatto! Però squisito, io adoro la bagna cauda!
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Quando stavo investigando questa ricetta online, avevo anche incontrato qualche ricetta ligure.
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Non ho dubbi, è una mia lacuna. Ma di fatto è proprio il cavolo che non rientra nella tradizione ligure, è un ortaggio che vuole il gelo, mentre il Liguria è davvero molto difficile che il termometro scenda così tanto
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Simple and elegant, Stefan.
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Truly interesting – am even willing to change my usual Chinese cabbage around to see how it tasted on your plate! My store sells miniature savoys at the moment and am compiling my on line list this afternoon: good timing 🙂 ! Was brought up on sauerkraut naturally: that basically does not interest any more except for raw, but this is far more elegant . . .
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Let me know how you liked it! Of course there is also Korean sauerkraut (aka kimchi) and I guess one could make this with Chinese cabbage (aka wombok), rice vinegar, garlic, and fish sauce (made from anchovies after all).
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Two different kettles of fish methinks 🙂 ! I have only been cooking Korean for 5-10 years and do make my own kimchi, but to me that only fits together with other Korean foods. Yours is an interesting ‘European’ idea and I’ll try it just as written down: ingredients ordered!! Shall report!!
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Good Stefan, i like cabbage.
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Reblogged this on Chef Ceaser.
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This is pretty mucuh how I prepare cabbage, Stefan, but I’ve never thought to add anchovies. That sounds very good. Guess what I’ll be buying this week at the farmers market? Thanks for sharing another great dish!
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