Beyond pie: Enjoy savory apple recipes during the fall harvest

Try a crisp, colorful red cabbage and apple salad or slowly braise cabbage and apples for a fresh, flavorful side dish.
Oct. 15, 2024
Wondering what to do with apples during the fall harvest. Try savory recipes like an apple cabbage salad or braised cabbage and apples. Photo: Getty Images.
Wondering what to do with apples during the fall harvest? Try savory recipes like an apple cabbage salad or braised cabbage and apples. Photo: Getty Images.

We tend to think of apples mainly as a treat or a sweet. We bite into crisp raw apples, enjoy them as a refreshing accompaniment to other foods such as cheese, and baking them into any number of confections or desserts — the iconic American apple pie.

We forget the many uses of apples in our other cooking, over and above baking and dessert-making. The ancient Romans and those living in Europe into the Middle Ages treated (furthermore, named) the apple as a “vegetable,” cooking it alongside various meats, especially pork and game, or serving cooked and oft-elaborately-spiced apples as its own course, alongside cooked root and green vegetables.

Apples were a favored stuffing for many meats, their native acidity serving as a foil to meats’ richness and fat. A pot of red cabbage and onions seems to beg for some added apples. Bits of apples are delicious in baked beans, cream-based soups, and many a hash; or cooked alongside potatoes or parsnips or cauliflower (or all three) in a mash. And what a lift some chopped apple gives a tuna or chicken salad, yes? Cue the Waldorf, too, for sure.

The fall harvest season is a wonderful time to lean into savory apple recipes, not just sweet treats.

When it comes to apples, you can experiment with an abundance of choices.

Somewhere near 8,000 varieties of apples now grow all over the globe. Apples grew wild as when humans first inhabited the world, millions of years ago. Apples are among the most diverse of living things. Science is closing in on the number of genes in the apple genome, around 50,000 against a mere 25,000 or so for the human.

About apples: Facts and history

  • As a plant, apples are a member of the rose family, Rosaceae.
  • The crabapple is the only apple native to North America.
  • It takes the energy from 50 leaves to produce one apple.
  • Apples are one-quarter air. That’s why they bob.
  • Apples are the second most valuable fruit grown in the United States. Grapes are first.
  • Apples are grown in all 50 states, although because apple trees require cold each winter, warmer states such as Florida and Texas do not produce commercial crops.
  • The globe’s top apple producers are, in order, China, Turkey, the United States, Poland, and India. (In 2022, latest information available.)
  • Only 5-6 percent of apples eaten in this country come from other countries such as New Zealand and Chile.
  • Depending on the total volume of the harvest, between 40-60 percent of each year’s U.S. apple crop is processed into apple juice and cider, applesauce, apple butter, dried apples and other apple-derived foods such as baby food or apple cider vinegar.
  • Washington State is by far the largest producing state in the country. It grows over half of all U.S. apples.
  • The top five apple varieties grown in the U.S. are, in order: Gala, Red Delicious, Granny Smith, Fuji, and Honeycrisp.
  • The most ascendant variety of apple in the U.S. is Cripps Pink (also known as Pink Lady).
  • We have the apple and Eve and The Garden of Eden; the apple and Snow White and her Witch. Merlin sat beneath an apple tree to teach. The gods of Valhalla are made immortal by eating only apples.
  • Mistletoe grows on apple trees. Roxy Music’s Bryan Ferry sings—hauntingly, woozily—of “Avalon” (“the fields of apples”) that cured King Arthur of legend.

Cabbages in savory cooking

The thick, hardy, water-storing leaves of cabbage are a function of where the plant originated, along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea some 4,000 years ago. The sun-drenched air is salty and makes for difficult growing conditions for any plant. Developing its structure was cabbage’s way to survive and thrive in such a climate and environment.

Cabbage was headless at first, resembling what we know as collard greens. During the first century B.C.E., growers of the vegetable selected for one of the cabbage plant’s buds and the hard, smooth, green-white, sometimes red “head” that we know as cabbage was born. (This sort of cabbage ruled the Middle Ages in Northern Europe.)

More great tips and recipes from Bill St. John.

But this is only one of several sorts of cabbage that figure in cooking. Chinese cabbages, so-called because European cabbage emigrated to the East along the Great Silk Road, are pointed and looser leafed. Bok choy is a good example. A third sort of cabbage was bred by the Belgians around the year 500 A.D. as Brussels sprouts. These “petits choux,” to use the French term meaning “little cabbages,” are just buds along the thick, fibrous stem of the cabbage.

A fourth variety of cabbage resembles the OG Mediterranean cabbage and is kale and collards, the most commonly eaten vegetable in Britain for more than 1,000 years. And, finally, a fifth family are “flowering” cabbages such as cauliflower and broccoli. (What we call the “crown” of these vegetables is actually a cabbage’s flower.)

Broccoli and cauliflower flourish as foods on their own, or dressed in several ways (roasted, braised whole, steamed, boiled, cut into “steaks” and grilled, and so on). The other cabbages are often married to other foods in final preparations, such as the famed corned beef and cabbage of St. Patrick’s Day. The most popular form of Irish-cooked cabbage, however, is colcannon, made by combining mashed potatoes and cabbage or kale.

Stuffed cabbage leaves are ubiquitous in the cuisines of Eastern Europe. Cabbage is classically paired with pork in both Western and Eastern cuisines; it is essential to both Chinese and Korean cooking.

Cooking cabbage hence has its rewards, but also its universal downside: its odor upon the application of heat, a function of high concentrations in the raw plant of both mustard oils (which give raw cabbage its “bite”) and various sulfur compounds.

The longer cabbage is cooked, the more these molecules produce themselves, therefore it is best not to overcook cabbage. For example, the hydrogen sulfide (typical of rotten eggs) produced by cooking cabbage doubles in the fifth through the seventh minute of cooking.

About cooking red cabbage, keep in mind that any red in it quickly turns to mauve on long cooking, then a slate blue, finally an unappetizing dirty green. However, cooking or preparing red cabbage with an acid (vinegar, for example, or wine, or citrus juice) preserves the red color. That’s the case with the recipe for red cabbage here.

About cabbages: Facts and history

  • Cabbage, Brassica oleracea, is from the family Cruciferae, from the Latin word for “cross.” Cabbage’s flowers are cross-shaped.
  • In English, the word cabbage derives from the Latin for “head,” caput, by way of Old French for “head,”
  • For thousands of years, growers have selected various parts of the Brassica plant for various forms of cabbage: selecting for the terminal heads led to hard, smooth “head cabbage”; selecting for lateral buds led to Brussels sprouts; for leaves, led to kale; for the root alone, to kohlrabi; and for stems and flowers, to broccoli and cauliflower.
  • Cabbage has been cultivated for more time than any other major vegetable, upwards of 4,000 years.
  • Cultivation of the Brussels sprout, on the other hand, dates back only 500 years. It is the youngest member of the cabbage family.
  • Cabbage came to the Americas in the 1500s, surging in the 1660s with the influx of German immigrants.
  • Many of the ancient Greek and Roman poets and philosophers—Diogenes, Horace, Pythagoras, and Cato, among them—considered eating cabbage a panacea and the secret to a long life. Cato had 25 sons who, he said, “like me, have eaten nothing but cabbage.”
  • Cabbage is considered one of the healthiest of foods: it is high in dietary fiber, the vitamins K, C, B6, and A, and sports the minerals calcium, iron, potassium, and manganese. A cup of cabbage is about 15 calories.
  • There are over 400 species of cabbage.
  • Because cabbages are a very hardy, fertile plant, they gave rise to the myth of “cabbage patch babies,” said to originate in gardens of cabbages.

Red Cabbage Salad with Apples

Adapted from “Everybody Eats Well in Belgium Cookbook,” Ruth Van Waerebeek (Workman Publishing, 1996). Serves 6-8.

Preparing red cabbage with some sort of acid (for example, as in this dish, with vinegar) preserves its crimson hues. Photo by Bill St. John, for UCHealth.
Preparing red cabbage with some sort of acid (for example, as in this dish, with vinegar) preserves its crimson hues. Photo by Bill St. John, for UCHealth.

Ingredients

1 cup cider vinegar

2 tablespoons sugar

2 bay leaves

1 sprig fresh thyme

1/2 head red cabbage (about 1 pound), finely shredded

1/2 cup vegetable oil

Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

1 tart apple, unpeeled, halved, cored, and thinly sliced

1/2 cup walnut halves, toasted (see method below)

Directions

Heat the vinegar with the sugar, bay leaves, and thyme in a small saucepan. Stir until the sugar is dissolved. Pour the warm vinegar over the shredded cabbage in a bowl and toss well. Cover and refrigerate for at least 6 hours.

Remove the salad from the refrigerator. The cabbage will be wilted and slightly pickled. Add the oil and mix well. Season with salt and pepper. The salad will keep in the refrigerator for 2 weeks.

Just before serving, discard the bay leaves and thyme. Decorate with the apple slices and sprinkle with the walnuts.

To toast nuts

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spread the nuts out evenly on a baking sheet and bake to 7-10 minutes, until you can just start to smell them and they have started to brown. Keep a careful eye on them as they can scorch easily. Let the nuts cook on paper towels before using.

Cabbage Braised with Apples

From “How to Cook Everything,” Mark Bittman (Double B Publishing, 2008). Makes 4 servings.

A classic vegetable and fruit pairing is braised or sautéed cabbage and apple. Photo by Bill St. John, for UCHealth.
A classic vegetable and fruit pairing is braised or sautéed cabbage and apple. Photo by Bill St. John, for UCHealth.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons butter

1 and 1/2 to 2 pounds Savoy or other white cabbage, cored and shredded

2 cups sweet apple, cored, peeled, roughly chopped

3 cloves

Salt and freshly ground pepper

1/2 cup apple juice, cider or vegetable stock

2 tablespoons apricot jam or preserves, for serving

Few drops lemon juice or apple cider vinegar, to taste, for serving

Directions

In a large pot, over medium-low heat, melt the butter and in it cook the cabbage, apples and cloves until the cabbage is glossy, about 3 minutes. Season with the salt and pepper, to taste.

To the pot, add the juice, cider or stock and cook the cabbage and apples until tender, but not mushy, about 30 minutes. To serve, stir in the jam and the lemon juice or vinegar.

Reach Bill St. John at [email protected]

About the author

For more than 40 years, Bill St. John’s specialties have been as varied as they are cultured. He writes and teaches about restaurants, wine, food & wine, the history of the cuisines of several countries (France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, and the USA), about religion and its nexus with food, culture, history, or philosophy, and on books, travel, food writing, op-ed, and language.

Bill has lent (and lends) his subject matter expertise to such outlets as The Rocky Mountain News, The Denver Post, The Chicago Tribune, 5280 Magazine, and for various entities such as food markets, wine shops, schools & hospitals, and, for its brief life, Microsoft’s sidewalk.com. In 2001 he was nominated for a James Beard Award in Journalism for his 12 years of writing for Wine & Spirits Magazine.

Bill's experience also includes teaching at Regis University and the University of Chicago and in classrooms of his own devising; working as on-air talent with Denver's KCNC-TV, where he scripted and presented a travel & lifestyle program called "Wine at 45"; a one-week stint as a Trappist monk; and offering his shoulder as a headrest for Julia Child for 20 minutes.

Bill has also visited 54 countries, 42 of the United States, and all 10 Canadian provinces.