One Dish Meal: Satay Shrimp & Roasted Cabbage

It's cool most days here, so my dinner cooking is still very dependent on roasting.  A March article in Bon Appetit was the inspiration for cooking both shrimp and cabbage on one baking sheet, pairing up a roasted vegetable with a main that can also be roasted, quickly, once the cabbage is done.

Roasted cabbage slices are mildly sweet and nutty, while still maintaining some crunch.  You can follow this basic recipe for roasted cabbage slices, but I also flipped them to encourage browning on both sides.  When you're roasting you don't want to pile the veggies on top of each other too much, but you can fit enough food for two on one big baking sheet.  Once the cabbage slices begin to brown and soften, you can scootch them over to make room for the shrimp.

For the shrimp, I followed this recipe for a satay marinade, but roasted the shrimp on the same pan, at the same 400 degree temperature as the cabbage, until they were pink and firm.

The combination of shrimp and roasted cabbage reminded me of the sweetness of dishes with peanut sauce.  Toss together the cabbage and shrimp, and top them with a sprinkle of chopped peanuts and a squeeze of lime, and possibly a dab of fish or soy sauce.

A Confetti of Flavors

So after all the hype about making hassenpfeffer, I feel a little silly for not realizing that this particular recipe wasn't going to work well just from reading it.  The sauce has bacon and wine in it, so it wasn't all bad.  But marinating the rabbit in an acid (vinegar) for a long time, as directed by the cookbook, is a bad move.  It made the meat tough and sour, so the rabbit was ruined before I even started cooking it.   The search for an authentic recipe continues.

Is there consensus on what traditional hassenpfeffer even is?  I've seen recipes that call for pickling spices, lemons, grape jelly, sour cream, or cognac to the sauce.   Another recipe would have me out scavenging the neighborhood bushes for juniper berries.  Bittman claims chocolate is a traditional ingredient, but the only other recipe I've seen that backs that up is a jugged hare recipe in Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's imposing tome on Meat.  Jugged hare is a rabbit cooked in its own blood.  Forgive me, I am not yet bored enough with food to eat blood sauce.

Usually I can at least compile a decent recipe from researching online, but for this one the ingredient lists are all over the map.  I might be curious enough to try again if I can find a better recipe, but I suppose a hunter's stew will always be somewhat improvised.

I had a bit more culinary luck on a recent visit to my friends in NY, where I was thoroughly spoiled with miso ramen from Momofuku noodle shop, a juicy burger from Joy Burger, and the amazing toasted marshmallow milkshake from Stand.