Pan-Fried Cabbage with Mustard Seeds from the Thug Kitchen Fast as Fuck cookbook.

This cabbage may not look like something spectacular or sexy, but it could easily dazzle the pants off of me any day of the week. So how can it not be the perfect valentine’s dish?

Why go out, when you can stay in and indulge in good food? Whether you’re paired up or flying solo, this dish is for you, with subtle flavours that unfold with each bite. Give yourself the gift of love. Give yourself the gift of cabbage.

I made this dish yesterday after receiving my brand new Shun knife in the mail, compliments of the one, the only, Thug Kitchen. I won the Thug Kitchen 12 Days of Sauce Competition and was thrilled when this amazing vegetable knife arrived. Handcrafted Japanese Steel. I feel like a Kitchen Warrior! It’s like handling a fucking Samurai sword. I needed to break it in, and cabbage was the way I decided to do it. It sliced through the cabbage like it was butter.

Just look at those clinical cabbage lines. Slicing perfection!

The thing that makes this dish so fantastic I think, is the combination of the mustard seeds, the spices, and the lemon drizzled over it at the end. Making this for yourself or a loved one on V-day, will guarantee your gut flora a real treat. And I say that in a genuinely acclamatory way. Our bodies deal with so much shit every day. Stress, toxins in our environments, over processed foods…You name it, our bodies are working to deal with it. Our bodies need a day off. A pamper day. They deserve to be treated like the rock stars they are. This dish will treat them to gut-healing cabbage power and a bunch of spices that fight inflammation. What perfect way to show your body just how much you love it? It is the only body you’re going to have in this lifetime (unless some weird cloning technology happens) so give it what it wants from time to time. Sleep, and cabbage.  Trust me, it will thank you for it.

I loved it when the mustard seeds started popping in the saucepan. Though so many flew out of the pan that I felt compelled to throw in some more to make up for the deserters.

Once the other spices were in things started to smell good in the kitchen, and then lastly, in went the cabbage. Easy.

Another great thing about making this dish is that once the cabbage is in and it’s cooking, it needs minimal attention* and you can prep other food to go with it. I made some kale fried up with shit loads of garlic.

I think this cabbage will make your insides very happy.

But what the hell do I know? I’m just a normal girl, in a normal kitchen, wielding an insanely sharp knife.

Happy Valentines Day.

* Maybe not minimal attention. Don’t neglect it like that withered thing in the corner that you used to call a house plant. Don’t judge me, just remember to stir from time to time.