Vietnamese Boiled Cabbage

When we first immigrated to the US my mother did not know how to cook, she boiled everything, this was one of my favorite dishes. We usually have two or three other dishes with meat or seafood, a soup and a vegetable (this serves as the vegetable dish) with steamed white rice for dinner.

• Ready In: 14 mins
• Serves: 4

Ingredients

• 1⁄2 large head of cabbage, chopped into large chunks 2-inch squares
• 1  tablespoon fresh ginger (about 1 inch piece, cut into 1/8-inch thick slices, skin on or off)
• 1⁄2 teaspoon salt (optional)

• Sauce

• 1  egg, hard boiled
• 2  tablespoons fish sauce (to taste)

Directions

1. Put cabbabe and ginger slices in a medium pot, put enough water in to cover the cabbage. Add salt if used.
2. Bring to a boil, then reduce to simmer. Cook for about 4 minutes or until cabbage is cooked - color becomes clear, but not too soft.
3. Drain pot of water (save if used for soup) and fill with cold water to stop the cooking.
4. Drain completely and put cabbage into serving dish.
5. Garnish with ginger slices - we don't eat these but the color is interesting.
6. Sauce:.
7. Peel hard boiled egg and put into small bowl, pour fish sauce over egg. Use a fork, mash the egg with the fish sauce. Cutting the egg white into small pieces.
8. Dip pieces of boiled cabbage into the sauce and enjoy.
9. Sometimes if we do not have a soup, my mom would serve the cabbage and ginger broth as a soup in which case she would add the salt to the cooking water and also add fish sauce to the broth at the table to taste. We also add fresh lime juices to the broth at the table if we are using it as a soup. I like this broth poured over a small amount of steamed white rice in my little bowl with a few drops of Tabasco because I love spicy food.