I’m a big cabbage fan—cooked with corned beef, grated in southern slaw, or adding a nice crunch to a tomato-based vegetable soup are some of my favorite ways to eat it.
Recently I stumbled upon even more delicious cabbage recipes, thanks to the wonders of Instagram and friends with very good taste.
I started out by salivating over Chef D. Alford‘s Creole Cabbage. He’s a caterer with amazing and creative food, like Soul-food Cupcakes, and you can buy his recipes individually (at a very reasonable price!) or as part of his Sincerely Tasty eCookbook. I picked up the recipe, but before I had a chance to get around to making it, I also stumbled across @myforkinglife‘s Jamaican Cabbage.
How much cabbage can one person eat? I was prepared to find out.
Fortunately, I have friends who know me well, and one of them saw my Instagram stories about these recipes and suggested that I look into gilgeori toast, a Korean breakfast sandwich that uses basically the same vegetables as these cabbage recipes.
Here is the video she recommended for learning how to make gilgeori.
Because the vegetables were so similar, I used the leftover Jamaican cabbage, which calls for cabbage, carrots, and scallions, along with tomato and thyme, and to which I added yellow squash, as the base for my gilgeori. Based on the recipes I looked up, you can keep the gilgeori simple with its egg and vegetable base, or you can go carnivore and add ham and cheese, which of course is what I did.
Then there are the condiments. Some recipes call for sugar and others for jam; blackberry jam gave me some monte cristo vibes and sounded delish with the ham, so that’s what I used. Mayonnaise seemed like a perfectly fine addition, but I hesitated when it came to the ketchup. Blackberry jam and ketchup seemed like they might fight with each other, but boy was I wrong. I tentatively dipped my first bite in ketchup and then added ketchup to the rest because it was so good.
This recipe is personalized with the things I like—cheddar cheese instead of American, blackberry jam (you can use sugar but the jam is so nice), and butter instead of margarine. I highly recommend that you go watch the video linked above and also look up some authentic gilgeori recipes (like this one from Korean Bapsang) to figure out the ways you might like to make it.
As always, I’m a huge fan of using leftovers to make recipes easier, so I stand by using the Jamaican cabbage recipe as your starting point for gilgeori.
Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about the creole cabbage recipe from Chef D.—it’s coming up next!
Gilgeori Breakfast Toast
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup leftover cooked cabbage, scallion, carrot, and other vegetables of choice from creole or Jamaican cabbage
- 1 egg
- 2 slices white bread (I used Dave's organic white done right)
- butter for browning bread
- 1 slice deli ham
- 1 slice cheddar cheese
- blackberry jam, mayonnaise, and ketchup for finishing
Instructions
- With a fork, mix together cooked cabbage medley with egg and a little salt and pepper. Melt butter in a skillet and pour veggie-egg mixture into it, cooking like an omelet and flipping to cook on both sides. Remove to a plate.
- Add a little more butter to the skillet and add bread, browning and lightly toasting on each side. Remove to plate and spread with jam (you can also use sugar here but the jam is really nice).
- Return cooked egg and vegetables to warm skillet and top with ham and cheese until warmed and melted slightly. Scoop up with a spatula and layer on one slice of bread. Squeeze ketchup and mayonnaise on, top with remaining slice of bread, and eat!