After a couple of weeks off healthful eating, we need to get back to eating cabbage, kale and other more serious greens. There are two cabbage recipes in the queue: One is a genuine casserole from Martha Wolford, and the other would qualify, I think, as a stir fry sort of thing sent by Rebecca Johnson. We’ll do the casserole next time, but Rebecca’s recipe best matched up with what I had in my fridge, so I gave it a try.

By now, you know I really like recipes with a high tinkerability quotient, and this is a great one for adjusting to your taste or to the leftovers in your fridge.

Now Rebecca got this recipe from a 1974 Cooperative Extension Service Bulletin called “Cooking for Two,” though nowadays she says she cooks for one, and this recipe makes her three servings. The recipe says you can use chicken, turkey, beef or pork, or leave out the meat and, as Rebecca suggested, use mushrooms and-or water chestnuts. I bet you could even use shrimp or scallops, tofu or tempeh. Rebecca likes this best with chicken, finds that tomatoes go well with it, and says that it doesn’t “taste like cabbage.” She usually adds a little more broth or water than the recipe calls for and she uses a light version of the soy sauce to avoid salt. She serves it on brown or white rice.

If my memory serves me rightly, when this recipe appeared in 1974, there were not quite the range of greens in the store that we find today. I don’t recall seeing broccoli rabe, for instance, or mustard, chard, collards and kale very often. Some of them showed up in the summer or fall when they were in season, but we can find them in stores now in the dead of winter. Chinese cabbage, bok choy, are fairly new to the greens scene, though I have a vague recollection of eating some of them when I was in my twenties, perhaps out of someone’s garden.

Well, they are certainly available now, and a combination of one or two of them would work nicely in this recipe in place of or in addition to cabbage. I think you could feel free to add other seasonings to this: chopped scallions, garlic, some fresh ginger or even a sprinkle of ground ginger or even red pepper flakes. How about a few toasted sesame seeds?

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Chinese-Style Dinner

1 large stalk of celery, sliced thinly crosswise

1 medium to large onion, thinly sliced

Garlic

One-quarter head of cabbage, and-or some other greens, sliced thinly (about 2 cups)

1 tablespoon oil

1 tablespoon cornstarch

3/4 cup chicken, turkey or meat broth

2 tablespoons soy sauce

2/3 cup of cut up cooked chicken, turkey, beef, or pork

Prepare the vegetables. Heat the oil in a heavy saute pan, cook the celery and onion until lightly browned. Mix the cornstarch, broth and soy sauce, and add to the hot pan, cooking and stirring until the sauce is clear and thickened. Add the meat and cabbage, stir, cover, and simmer gently for three to five minutes or until the cabbage is as tender as you like.