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The crunchy pickled cabbage that lives next to the pozole pot and on top of the tostada. Shredded cabbage, carrot, and thin-sliced jalapeño cured in white vinegar with Mexican oregano. A few hours of patience, weeks of payoff.
Col curtida does not belong to one state. It belongs to all of them. From the pozolerias of Jalisco to the tostada stands of Ciudad de México to the loncherias of Veracruz, the jar of pickled cabbage sits next to the jar of pickled jalapeños and earns its place at every counter. This is the side dish of the Mexican working kitchen, the thing you put on top of a tostada de pata or a tlacoyo or a sandwich of carne deshebrada to make it complete.
The technique is simple, which is exactly why it must be done right. Thin shreds of cabbage. White vinegar, not apple cider, not rice. Mexican oregano crumbled between your palms, not the Mediterranean kind that tastes like pizza. Fresh chile jalapeño sliced into rounds, the seeds left in if you want the brine to bite back. A short hot brine that wakes up the spices and then gets poured over the vegetables to do its work. No fancy fermentation. No water bath canning. This is a refrigerator pickle, the kind every Mexican home cook keeps on hand because tostadas happen on a Tuesday and you do not want to be empty-handed.
My mother kept a glass jar of col curtida in the back of the refrigerator at all times. Whenever the jar got low, she refilled it on a Sunday afternoon while the pozole simmered. She used to say that a kitchen without curtido was a kitchen that did not respect itself. The jar was always there. The slaw was always crunchy. La cocina no es decoración, es trabajo.
Pickling vegetables in vinegar arrived in Mexico with the Spanish, who brought the technique of escabeche from the Iberian peninsula, where it had been adapted centuries earlier from Persian sikbaj. Mexican cooks took the method and made it theirs, swapping in native chiles, white onion, and the dried oregano that grows wild across the central highlands, a different botanical species (Lippia graveolens) than the Mediterranean oregano (Origanum vulgare) used in escabeche's original form. By the 19th century, jarred vegetables in vinegar were a fixture of the fonda and pozoleria, both as a counter condiment and as a practical way to preserve seasonal produce in the era before refrigeration.
Quantity
1 (about 2 pounds)
cored and finely shredded
Quantity
2 medium
peeled and shredded on the large holes of a box grater
Quantity
1 medium
sliced into thin half-moons
Quantity
3
stemmed and sliced into thin rounds
Quantity
4
peeled and lightly smashed
Quantity
1 1/2 cups
Quantity
1 cup
Quantity
1 tablespoon
Quantity
2 teaspoons
Quantity
1 tablespoon
Quantity
1 teaspoon
Quantity
2
Quantity
1 teaspoon
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| small head green cabbagecored and finely shredded | 1 (about 2 pounds) |
| carrotspeeled and shredded on the large holes of a box grater | 2 medium |
| white onionsliced into thin half-moons | 1 medium |
| fresh chile jalapeñostemmed and sliced into thin rounds | 3 |
| garlic clovespeeled and lightly smashed | 4 |
| white distilled vinegar | 1 1/2 cups |
| water | 1 cup |
| kosher salt | 1 tablespoon |
| granulated sugar | 2 teaspoons |
| dried Mexican oregano | 1 tablespoon |
| whole black peppercorns | 1 teaspoon |
| bay leaves | 2 |
| whole cumin seed (optional) | 1 teaspoon |
Quarter the cabbage and cut out the hard core. Lay each quarter flat side down and slice across as thin as you can with a sharp knife. Thin shreds curl and grab the vinegar. Thick shreds stay stiff and never cure properly. Pile the cabbage into a large heatproof bowl with the shredded carrot and the half-moons of white onion.
In a small non-reactive saucepan, combine the vinegar, water, salt, sugar, smashed garlic, peppercorns, bay leaves, and cumin if using. Bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat, stirring once or twice until the salt and sugar dissolve. Pull it off the heat the moment it simmers. You are not cooking the brine, you are waking it up.
Scatter the sliced jalapeños over the cabbage and carrot. Crumble the dried Mexican oregano between your palms as you drop it in. Crumbling releases the oils. Whole leaves sit on top doing nothing. This is the herb that tells you the slaw is Mexican and not generic. No me vengas con atajos.
Pour the hot brine, garlic and all, directly over the vegetables. Press down with a wooden spoon so the cabbage starts to wilt and the liquid covers as much as possible. It will not cover everything at first. That is fine. The cabbage releases its own water within the hour and the volume drops by a third.
Toss the slaw with two large spoons every ten minutes for the first half hour, turning the dry cabbage from the top down into the brine. After 30 minutes the cabbage will have softened, the volume will have dropped, and the brine will cover almost everything. Cover and let it sit at room temperature for one more hour, or transfer to a clean glass jar and refrigerate.
Col curtida is good after two hours. It is better the next day. It is best on day three, when the jalapeño has perfumed the brine and the cabbage has the clean snap of a proper pickle. Serve it cold or at room temperature, lifted out of the brine with a slotted spoon, spooned over pozole, tostadas de tinga, enchiladas suizas, or a plate of beans. Así se hace y punto.
1 serving (about 170g)
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