Elderberries best suit savoury foods and this sticky elderberry cabbage is the perfect accompaniment for a Sunday roast. It’s best to freeze the berries in early October and use them when needed.
Makes enough to serve 6 as a side.
Click here to see our Elder Foraging Guide
Ingredients for our Elderberry cabbage:
- Large Red Cabbage – thinly slice
- 1 tblsp real butter
- 2 red onions – peeled and finely chopped
- 2tsp red wine vinegar
- 150g elder berries – queezed to extract juice
- 50g brown sugar
- 10g ground hogweed seeds (or 1 cinnamon stick)
- 1 orange – Zest and juice
Method:
- Heat the butter in a large pan, add the onions and fry off until soft – approx. 5 minutes
- Add the orange zest and cinnamon (or hogweed seeds) and cook for a minute before adding in the rest of the ingredients.
- Bring the whole lot to the boil then reduce to a rolling simmer, cover the pan and cook fr 45 minutes when the cabbage is softened well.
View all of our Elderflower & Elderberry Recipes here
Edible use
Leaves: Herbal use as a strong anti-viral (can cause nausea and vomiting)
Immature flower buds: Pickling, Lacto fermenting
Flowers: Cordial, Sparkling Wine, Tempura, Tea, Ointments
Fruit: Best heated, Wine, Syrups, Juice, Fruit Leather, Cordial, Beers, Ketchup, Chutney, Jam, Frozen in Desserts
Herbal
The flowers are still used by herbalists now to aid inflammation within the respiratory system, including asthma, coughs and hay fever.
The berries are commonly used and stored within syrups, jams, wines and juices to give a boost of vitamins and minerals throughout the winter months, helping to ward of the common winter ailments.
Miscellaneous
If you cut a branch from this tree the inside or pith can be pushed out fairly easily, using a tent peg or other hard piece of wood, this hollow wood can now be used for loads of things. Making jewelry, beads, pennies, snakes, whistles and even blow darts
