RECIPE - Creamed Napa Cabbage (Acelga com Creme)

This is a very Brazilian, and very un-Asian, vegetable dish starring acelga, or Napa cabbage, originally from Asia but now enthusiastically adopted as native in Brazil. A versatile member of the cabbage family, acelga is equally at home in salad and cooked-vegetable presentations, and Brazilians enjoy it both ways. In yesterday's post at Flavors of Brazil, we featured leafy acelga in a light salad, and here we're highlighting its use as a vegetable side dish - a perfect accompaniment to grilled or roasted meats and poultry.
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RECIPE - Creamed Napa Cabbage (Acelga com Creme)
Serves 4

1 whole egg, hard-boiled, at room temperature
4 (1 liter) water
1/2 large head Napa cabbage (acelga)
1 cup whole milk
2 tsp corn starch
2 Tbsp neutral vegetable oil
1 Tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
2 Tbsp finely chopped Italian parsley
paprika to taste
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Peel the egg and separate the yolk and the whites. Reserve.

Coarsely chop the Napa cabbage. Bring the water to a boil in a large saucepan. When the water comes to the boil, drop the chopped cabbage into the water for 10 seconds only, then immediately drain into a colander and refresh with cold water. Reserve.

Put 3/4 cup of the milk into a medium mixing bowl, and 1/4 cup into a small bowl. Stir the cornstarch into the milk in the small bowl, and when it has dissolved, add to the milk in the larger bowl and stir to mix completely. Reserve.

In a large frying pan or wok, heat the vegetable oil and when it's hot, add the drained cabbage. Stir fry for no more than 2 minutes, or just until the cabbage is heated and beginning to wilt. Add the milk, reduce heat slightly and cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture has thickened. Stir in the grated Parmesan and 1 Tbsp of the parsley, then remove from heat.

Pour the creamed cabbage into a deep serving bowl. Using a small sieve held over the dish, push the egg yolk through the sieve to sprinkle the center of the dish. Rinse the sieve and then push the white through the sieve around the edges of the dish. Sprinkle the surface with the second Tbsp Italian parsley and paprika to taste. Serve hot.

RECIPE - Napa Cabbage Salad (Salada de Acelga)

This light and healthy Brazilian salad, which features the Asian green known in English as Napa cabbage or Chinese cabbage and which is called acelga in Brazil, can successfully be served as a side salad or in larger portions as a main course for a light lunch, particularly on hot days (which are the norm in Brazil).

The dressing is made with plain unflavored yogurt, and although the recipe calls for natural, full-fat yogurt, if you want to make a less caloric version you can successfully substitute non-fat yogurt.
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RECIPE - Napa Cabbage Salad (Salada de Acelga)
Serves 5 as side salad, 2-3 as main course

1 medium head Napa cabbage (acelga)
1 large carrot, coarsely grated on a box grater or julienned with a mandoline
1/2 cup sliced black olives
1 small tub natural yogurt
1 Tbsp fresh-squeezed lime juice
1 Tbsp honey
1 Tbsp finely chopped fresh mint
salt and pepper to taste
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Tear off the outer leaves of the head of cabbage. Starting at the end away from the stem, thinly slice the cabbage, only going down about 2/3 of the way to the stem end.

Place the cabbage in a large salad bowl, and toss the leaves to separate them. Sprinkle the grated or julienned carrot and the olives on top. Reserve, preferably in the refrigerator.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine the yogurt, lime juice and honey and mix well with a fork. Add the mint and mix again. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serve the salad with the dressing on the side so that diners can add to taste.

Recipe translated and adapted from Gastronomia & Negócios, a UOL website.

VEGETABLES 0F BRAZIL - Acelga (Napa Cabbage)

Although Asian greens, such as bok choy and gai lan, are not commonly eaten in Brazil outside the Asian communities of São Paulo's Liberdade district, one Asian form of cabbage has become a supermarket standard in Brazil, available all year round in most supermarkets in all regions of the country. Brassica rapa subsp. pekinensis, known variously in English as Chinese cabbage, Napa cabbage and Chinese Leaf, is called acelga in Brazil, and under that name has made its way into many Brazilian vegetable and salad recipes. (Incidentally, the English name Napa has nothing to do with the California wine-growing district. Napa comes from colloquial Japanese nappa (菜っ葉), which means any edible leaf.)

Napa cabbage is a staple in most East Asian cuisines, and in one of its most well-loved incarnations is the prime ingredient in Korean kim-chee, the spicy fermented cabbage pickle without which Korean cuisine wouldn't exist. We've not found any source that explains how this Asian vegetable made its way to Brazil, but it would be logical that it arrived with the wave of Japanese immigrants to came to Brazil in the early 20th century to work in Brazil's coffee plantations.

Brazilian dictionaries and the Portuguese-language version of Wikipedia define acelga as chard, not Napa cabbage, but we've never seen true chard, which is a member of the beet family not a cabbage, in a Brazilian supermarket or farmers market under any name. Perhaps in Portugal acelga refers to the plant called chard in English, but in Brazil the word is restricted to Napa cabbage.

Brazilians really don't use the Asian cooking technique called stir-frying, and woks don't exist in this country - again, outside Asian communities. Acelga is more often a feature of Brazilian salad recipes, and the thin, light leaves of the plant are very suited to eating raw, unlike some other Asian greens which need to be cooked before eating.

We'll feature some Brazilian recipes for acelga in the next few posts. Under it's various English monikers, this green is easy to find in North American and European supermarkets in larger metropolitan areas, and in Asian groceries in cities that have Asian immigrant communities. Salads made with this green are light, refreshing and nutritious and serving a salad with Napa cabbage can elevate the day-to-day salad to something new and exotic.