A Gratin of White Cabbage, Cheese, and Mustard

All of the brassica family have an affinity with cream and cheese, yet it is those grown for their heads rather than their leaves that seem to get the comfort of dairy produce. Cauliflower and broccoli have long been served under a blanket of cheese and cream, but less so cabbage and the leafier greens. The reason, I have always assumed, is that the cabbage would be overcooked by the time the sauce has formed a crust in the hot oven. In practice, the “white” cabbages that sit on supermarket shelves like rock-hard footballs can be put to good use in a gratin. Their leaves and stalks are juicy when blanched in boiling water and the thicker leaves hold up very well under a sharp cheese sauce, flecked with nutmeg and hot white pepper. I mostly use a cabbage gratin as a friend for a piece of boiled ham or bacon, especially one that has been simmered in apple juice with juniper berries and onion, but sometimes we eat it as it comes, as a TV dinner, like cauliflower cheese. My suggestion of Cornish Yarg is only because I have used it here to good effect. Any briskly flavored cheese is suitable.