Nici Wickes: Fried cabbage leaves

THIS WEEK is the inaugural NZ ZERO FOOD WASTE CHALLENGE and it’s been so enlightening learning about landfill and how we contribute to it and what it’s doing in terms of emissions and resource management. One of the powerful habits to form to reduce what you’re throwing out is to USE IT ALL UP which means using stalks, peelings, outer leaves etc.

I’ve become a huge fan of fried cabbage leaves which I first tried at a restaurant on Waiheke Island – they are just sooooo good.

Makes 8-10

• 1-2 outer cabbage leaves
• ½ cup GF self-raising flour
• 2 tbsps cornflour
• 2 tsps cumin seeds
• ½ tsp turmeric
• ½ tsp sea salt
• ¾ cup ice cold water
• Vegetable oil for deep-frying

1. Cut the cabbage leaves into smaller pieces, say the size of your palm.

2. In a bowl, mix flour, cornflour, cumin, turmeric, salt and water to a smooth thin batter.

3. Heat enough oil in a medium saucepan to be able to immerse leaves for cooking. When oil begins to shimmer, drop some batter into the oil – if it fizzes immediately it is hot enough.

4. Dredge each cabbage leaf through the batter to coat, draining any excess. Lower into hot oil and cook until golden brown then drain on a paper towel. Repeat with all leaves.

5. Serve immediately sprinkled with salt.

3 FUN FACTS:

A lettuce takes 25 years to decompose in landfill due to the anaerobic conditions

For every kilo of food lobbed into landfill, 830 litres of water is lost – that’s 13 showers

1 kilo of food in landfill produces about the same carbon emissions as 25,000 plastic bottle

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