I’m in a cabbage state of mind. With a plenitude of cabbages from the garden, I have been searching my files for cabbage recipes. With only one or two people to feed, a single cabbage goes a long way—half a head makes a veggie main dish for one meal, coleslaw with another quarter, an addition to Asian stir-fry for the rest. I even pulled out The Joy of Cooking in search of a recipe for sauerkraut (but did not try it). This week it’s trinxat, a Catalan dish of cabbage and potatoes.
I posted a recipe for trinxat way back in 2014. The recipe was taken from Chef Jeff Weiss’s book, CharcuterÃa, The Soul of Spain. With the addition of butter, that recipe is rather more cheffy than the traditional, rustic dish, which is made with pork fat and olive oil.
The traditional recipe comes from the Catalan region of the Cerdanya, the top northeast of Spain, where the Pyrenees mountains divide Spain and France. It can be made with scraps of pancetta, bacon, pork sausage, or Catalan butifarra sausage. Trinxat means “chopped” or “mashed,” as the cabbage and potatoes are crushed while frying in pork fat.
Trinxat makes a splendid supper dish or might be served as a vegetable side. (For a vegetarian version, omit the porky bits and use additional olive oil.)
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| Hash-brown cabbage and potatoes are topped with bacon and garlic, served with tomato sauce alongside. |
Catalan Cabbage and Potato Hash
Trinxat
The idea is to fry the cooked cabbage and potatoes into a sort-of cake, somewhat like a potato tortilla. Start by boiling the cabbage and potatoes. Drain them well. Fry them in bacon fat, crushing them with a wooden spoon or potato masher until completely smashed. Press the mixture into a round cake, firming up the edges, and let it brown on the bottom. Either flip the mixture over, like a thick pancake, or, in the manner of a potato tortilla, hold a flat plate over the skillet and reverse it, turning the vegetables onto the plate, then sliding them back to brown on the reverse side. Unlike a tortilla that is set with eggs, the trinxat is not firm enough to hold its shape. It will slump. Never mind. Spread it out into a cake again and let the bottom brown. If the mixture falls apart, just scoop it up and serve it like hash.
Serve the trinxat, if desired, accompanied by a simple sofrito (fried tomato sauce).
Serves 4.
2 ½ cups diced potatoes (1 pound)
Salt
6 tablespoons olive oil
4-6 ounces pancetta, bacon, butifarra, or pork sausage
2 cloves garlic, sliced
1/8 teaspoon cumin seeds
Freshly ground black pepper
Cook the cabbage and potatoes in boiling salted water until very tender, 20 minutes. Drain well. Return the vegetables to the pan over a low heat to evaporate all the moisture.
Cut the pancetta or bacon into strips. If using sausage, remove from casings and break into pieces. Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a non-stick skillet. Add the pancetta and garlic and fry until pancetta is crisp. Remove the pan from the heat, tip it so the oil runs to one side, and skim out the pancetta and garlic.
Return the pan to the heat. Add the cabbage and potatoes. Use a wooden paddle, spoon, or potato masher to chop and mash the vegetables until they are reduced to a lumpy mush. Stir some of the pancetta and garlic into the vegetables, reserving the rest to garnish the top of the dish. Season with salt to taste, cumin, and pepper.
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| Firm edges. |
Keep turning the vegetables until they are thoroughly heated. Now press them into a cake, using the wooden paddle or spatula to firm the sides, pulling them away from the rim of the pan. Add 2 tablespoons of oil around the edges of the “cake.” Keep frying on medium-high until the vegetables begin to smell like they are browning on the bottom.
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| Slide hash back into skillet. |
Lightly oil a flat plate that will fit over the top of the skillet. Hold it tightly on top of the skillet and reverse the cake onto the plate. Don’t worry if it loses its round shape. Add remaining 2 tablespoons of oil to the skillet. With a spatula, push the cake off the plate back into the skillet. Again, smooth it into a round cake and firm the sides. Let the bottom brown.
Either slide the cake out onto a clean serving plate or, again, reverse it onto the serving plate. Top it with the reserved pancetta and garlic.
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| Trinxat shaped into individual patties. |
Another rendition of trinxat. Here the cabbage-potato mixture is shaped into patties and fried. That recipe (along with a chef's recipe for sofrito tomato sauce) is here.
More recipes from my cabbage repertoire:
Cabbage Roll-Ups, Sevilla Style with Brava Sauce
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