If you are familiar with Lincoln Square, you've probably heard about or even attended the annual Apple Fest in October. The Chopping Block is famous for our Apple Pie, and we bake a lot of them for this fest. This year, we baked over 600 pies and sold out by midday on the second day! Along with pie, we also featured a smoked pulled pork sandwich topped with our coleslaw. Since it isn't currently on any of our cooking class menus, and we got some great reviews of it, I thought, why not share the recipe with you?
Coleslaw, also known as slaw, is a salad consisting primarily of finely-shredded raw cabbage with a salad dressing, commonly either vinaigrette or mayonnaise. Coleslaw prepared with vinaigrette may benefit from the long lifespan granted by pickling.
It is a simple recipe and consists of red cabbage, Granny Smith apples, apple cider vinegar, sliced red onions, lemon juice, olive, oil and grapeseed oil, salt, pepper to taste.
I love this recipe because you can easily make substitutions based on the flavors you want or the ingredients you have on hand. For example, you can substitute the apple cider vinegar for champagne vinegar if you are looking for a more acidic outcome. You could also use a different apple if you want your slaw to be sweeter. I like to keep my slaw somewhat acidic since you will likely serve it with something delicious, like a fatty meat such as pork shoulder. The acidity is the perfect balancing factor for the fatty elements.
We marinate the pork shoulder and slowly smoke it for hours on the Big Green Egg until it's tender and ready to be shredded.
Red Cabbage and Green Apple Slaw
Yield: 4 to 6 servings
Active time: 15 minutes
Start to finish: 20 minutes
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1 to 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons grapeseed oil
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/2 medium red onion
1/2 head red cabbage
2 Granny Smith apples
Juice of half a lemon
Make the dressing. Add the vinegar and salt into a mixing bowl, and whisk in the oils. Slice the red onion as thinly as possible, and add to the dressing. Stabilize the mixing bowl with one hand, and with the other, grab and crush the onions into the dressing. The trick here is to extract as much of the onion juice as possible into the dressing.
Cut the cabbage. Slice the cabbage as thin as possible. Cabbage is hard to cut because of its size. A good approach is to cut the core out of the cabbage, and then slice off sections that are stable on the cutting board and easier to manage. Toss the shredded cabbage into the dressing.
Cut the apples and assemble. Cut the apples in half from pole to pole, then into quarters. Cut out the core sections, and then proceed to cut into julienne or small strips.
Toss them in a bowl with lemon juice, and reserve until just before serving. When ready, toss together and enjoy.
It is best to store the slaw in an airtight container in your refrigerator, and it will last for a couple of days.The longer it marinates, the better the outcome. As I mentioned earlier, you can serve it with smoked meats, grilled fish, or to complement a hot sandwich.
We'll have pulled pork sliders available at our Customer Appreciation Day which is coming up on Thursday, November 1 at our Merchandise Mart location. Stop by for free chef demonstrations, samples, wine tastings and save 20% off everything in the store. The fun goes from 10am - 6pm! Check out our class calendar for a list of the chef demonstrations that day.
