Why I salt the cabbage and wait

Shredded cabbage is already on the board — and the hand pulls it straight to the pan “we’ll manage”. Easy to fry the raw heap: it hisses in a puddle, stays tough, the oil goes faster than it seems. I scatter coarse salt, rub with my hands and step away for ten to fifteen minutes — so the beads come, and the leaf softens before the heat.

Why I salt the cabbage and wait. Salting the aubergine is another note; a cabbage head in the hand its own; fried cabbage another story. Here it’s the autumn shred itself: salt, a pause, blot — not a lecture about “twelve cabbage salads”.

I pat the beads with a cloth; I don’t rinse under the tap: no need to wet again what it has just given up. If I’m truly in a hurry — at least five minutes: better a little than a raw hissing lump. I’m not writing a new braised-cabbage recipe in this note — it’s about the heap that already sits on our board before the pan.

I don’t need cabbage that drowns in oil in the first minute and stays tough. I need a shred that has given its water first. At yours do you salt the cabbage and wait — or is it already hissing raw, and the oil finished before supper?