I first tasted this dish in Kazakhstan. It was during the first week after I arrived there in the autumn of 1996. I was invited for dinner to the home of the director of the school I was about to start working for as an English language teacher. The table was spread with all sorts of goodies and the director's daughter, who was acting as interpreter, pointed out several dishes which she assured me were vegetarian and explained how her mother had spent all afternoon cooking vegetarian food especially for me.
I got stuck into the food and it was all very tasty. 'This woman is an excelent cook.' I was thinking to myself, 'Her baked red cabbage is delicious. I'll have to try doing that myself. I wonder what those red beans with peppers are like?' I reached over and spooned a big helping onto my plate and shovelled some into my face, continuing all the while with my internal dialogue. 'Hmmm... not bad at all, but what's that strange texture? This should be investigated before I go any further. Oh dear. Is that wee bits of bacon I see before me?'
The rest of the food seemed okay, but I had lost confidence in the director and her daughter and spent the rest of the evening being polite and waiting for the first opportunity to make an exit. My discovery had led me to the unsettling thought that the woman I had just signed a contract with was either a complete idiot or not a very honest person. Over the following year it became evident that the woman was anything but an idiot and I was forced to revise my estimation of 'not very honest' to 'totally dishonest'.
The original red cabbage dish had no bacon in it nor any other particles of flesh as far as I could tell. It was however, made with a cheese sauce and I later modified the recipe when I was cooking for some vegan friends. In place of milk and cheese, I used soya milk and cashews and everyone enjoyed the result.
1 head of red cabbage
800ml - 1litre of white sauce
A handful of cashew nuts
A little grated nutmeg
Black pepper
Salt
Remove any tatty outer leaves from the cabbage and trim the stalk if necessary. Cut the cabbage in half then cut each half into slices four or five centimetres thick. Be gentle with the pieces so that the leaves don't all separate. Lay the slices in a baking tray so that each piece overlaps the next.
Crush or finely chop the cashew nuts and stir into the white sauce along with the pepper, nutmeg and a little salt if necessary. Salt the sauce well as the cabbage will absorb some while cooking. Pour the sauce over the cabbage and bake in a meduim oven for about 50 minutes.