Rode Kool met Appel (Braised Red Cabbage with Apple)

Come November, rode kool met appel appears on Dutch tables and stays until spring. It is the winter vegetable of the Low Countries: a whole red cabbage shredded and braised slow with apple, clove and cinnamon until it slumps into a soft, sweet-sour tangle. Every household has its version, and every version is the near-constant companion to the season's dark meat braises, above all to hachee, whose deep oniony savour it answers with fruit and acid.

A little kitchen chemistry

Red cabbage is one of the few vegetables that teaches you chemistry as you cook it. Its pigments are anthocyanins, which shift colour with acidity. They turn bright red-purple in acid and dull blue-grey in alkaline water. This is why every good recipe adds the vinegar early and keeps the tart apples close: the acid locks the cabbage into its vivid crimson. Skip it, and you get something that tastes fine but looks bruised.

The vinegar sets the colour as well as the flavour. It keeps the pot the opposite of a Delft-blue plate: a vivid, jewel-bright red.

Sweet-sour, and better tomorrow

The seasoning is the familiar Dutch winter cellar: clove, cinnamon, bay, and enough sugar or appelstroop to round the sharpness of the vinegar into balance. Like so much of this cooking it rewards making ahead. A day in the fridge lets the sweet and sour marry and the spice bloom. Reheated and set down beside a plate of braised beef and boiled potatoes, it does exactly what a great side dish should: it lifts and cuts and refreshes, making the rich food around it taste better than it would alone.