Father's Day inspired us to ask our food friends about their favourite memories in the kitchen cooking with their dad. What are some of Dad's favourite recipes? What advice did Dad give you in the kitchen? Was he the King of the Kitchen or the Master of Eating?
We caught up with Olivia, the Marketing Manager at The Chef & The Dish, who told us a bit about cooking with her dad... and his signature recipe. And it sounds delicious!
"My dad is great at many things, but I couldn’t say cooking is one of them, and I'll admit I've spent more time with him in the garage than the kitchen. I have lots of memories of helping him work on his motorcycle or cars (and by “helping” that usually meant bringing him a beer).
Though he may not be a chef, he definitely loves to eat. Particularly ice cream - on numerous occasions he has finished a box of the ice cream cones you can find in the freezer section at the grocery store. His craving will be so bad, that he'll go to the store and open another on his drive home.
Although, a new hobby of his over the last couple years has been making his own beef jerky. After many different marinade combinations, some bad and some worse, he has finally narrowed it down to one that I can honestly say stands up to any store bought jerky.
But there is one dish that he makes that is one of my personal favourites - Purple Cabbage and Bacon.
This is a recipe he learned from his Grandmother years ago and to this day, when he gets a craving for it he’ll throw together this amazing (and easy) side dish for the whole family. It doesn’t matter what were having for dinner that evening, it’s cabbage and bacon, and to me that goes with anything (even just a bowl by itself!)"
Olivia's dad has graciously shared the recipe he believes is now "semi-famous" (thanks Olivia's Dad). We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.
"Semi-Famous" Purple Cabbage & Bacon Recipe
Serves: 4
Ingredients:
Small/medium head of Purple/Red Cabbage with outer leaves removed
6 – 8 slices of Bacon with ¼ cup of bacon fat reserved
¼ cup White Vinegar
¼ cup Brown Sugar (we usually use golden brown sugar)
Method:
Cook bacon in large frying pan until crisp. Remove bacon pieces from pan onto paper towel-lined plate and break into bite size pieces. Pour bacon fat into measuring cup to ¼ cup, and discard remainder. *Make sure to leave bacon residue/drippings in pan.
Cut cabbage in half, remove core and cut with large knife or mandolin into a coarse shred.
Add the vinegar, brown sugar and reserved bacon fat back into the pan and heat until sugar is dissolved on medium heat.
Add shredded cabbage to pan and fold over to coat with liquid until heated through. Do this until the cabbage is slightly wilted but still crunchy, about 1-2 minutes. Stir in bacon pieces, remove from heat, pour into serving bowl and enjoy!
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