Creamy Bacon Cabbage

A very quick offering again tonight, as once more I really need to get to bed. I hope everyone's Christmas was as merry as mine - and by the way, the Christmas Pudding went down a treat, despite those dodgy plastic pudding bowls. I re-potted it in proper ceramic ones with muslin, and steamed it on Christmas morning. It was delicious, despite a slightly alarming last-minute blast in the hot oven, because it needed browning up a bit. The Anonymous Bystander has since announced that while it was very nice, we're all sick of Chrissy Pud now and tomorrow it will be fed to the birds...

Now it's Boxing Day, though, and I'm frankly far too exhausted by all the rich Christmas food to be keen on cooking very much. I had, however, made a somewhat unwise promise to the Anonymous Bystander that I'd cook some cabbage for lunch tomorrow before heading to bed. So cabbage it is.

With this recipe, you can vary your ratio of cabbage to bacon and cream, depending on how healthy you're feeling. I used nearly a whole pack of bacon and about 250ml of cream...but then again, I was cooking for 15.

Ingredients:

A cabbage - savoy or white, it's your choice
Lots of bacon
A slosh of white wine
A smaller slosh of water
Plenty of cream
Salt and black pepper
  
Recipe:

1. Chop your cabbage into quarters or eighths, cut out the tough part at the bottom, and slice along each quarter so that it's fairly thinly shredded.
2. Cook off your bacon in the oven so it's about half done, and let it cool until you can handle it. This makes it easier to chop up - I hate chopping raw bacon, because it always slips around, won't cut evenly, and sticks to the knife/scissors. Yuck.
3. Chop the bacon into dice or slices, about the same size as your cabbage pieces.
4. In a large pan, carry on cooking your bacon until it's fairly crispy.
5. Add the sloshes of wine and water, and let it bubble for a minute.
6. Add your cabbage. Give it a stir so that the bacon is mixed in.
7. Cover with a lid and leave to simmer for 5 minutes or so, or until the cabbage is cooked to your satisfaction.
8. Add ridiculous quantites of cream and stir well. Season.
9. Allow to cook for a little while longer until the cream has thickened a bit, and taste for seasoning one more time. The cardinal rule of seasoning, by the way, is that if you think it needs a certain something but don't know what, it's 99% certain to be salt.
10. Serve hot with pork or game birds. Alternatively, set aside and re-heat - it'll keep a day or three in the fridge.