This is one hell of a title for a salad, but trust me, it’s extraordinarily moreish, it’s brilliant as a drinking snack and it’s so easy to prepare it’s become an absolutely solid staple of my kitchen.

Yamitsuki kyabetsu literally means ‘addictive cabbage’ so I’m not making this up. It’s really, really basic, which is definitely part of its appeal. Even if you’re not normally a fan of cabbage, you might find this dish changes your mind.

Where does it come from?

It originates in Izakaya – traditional drinking establishments ubiquitous across Japan, characterised by being mostly informal, unpretentious and where a wide selection of food is served alongside alcoholic beverages. You can see some previous posts on Izakaya culture here, here and here.

In Japan, while many drinking snacks involve deep fried, meaty or fish-based dishes, it is also very common to serve more ‘refreshing’ vegetable-based dishes including seaweed, skewers, pickles, edamame, and in this case, salad.

Ingredients

You can prepare this with as little as three standard ingredients, but you can spruce it up with additional things if you like. Here are the basics:

• Fresh cabbage
• Salt
• Oil (preferably sesame oil)

Other things that you could add include chicken powder (or a similar equivalent such as a ground up stock cube) to taste, MSG, chilli powder, dashi powder, furikake, finely ground Sichuan pepper, sesame seeds, minced garlic, soy sauce or vinegar.

How to make your cabbage addictive

Take a cabbage – most are technically usable but the softer varieties are generally better.

A hipsi cabbage will give you a good, consistent and crunchy bite. A Savoy has a more complex texture, with almost lacey veins and a more pliable mouthfeel. Take your pick – or grow your own! A home-grown cabbage, washed and lovingly prepared for this dish is a particularly satisfying item to serve alongside a well-earned drink after your toil!

I discard the outer leaves for this dish. You can then either peel each leaf off and tear it into bitesize pieces, discarding the harder core elements (or just chewing them on your own).

Alternatively you can cut the cabbage into quarters, cut out the hard core, then roughly chop the remainder into bitesize pieces, separating the leaves to make sure they’re all loose from one another.

Add them to a large bowl. You can keep them refrigerated or even at room temperature for an hour or two before it’s time to serve.

You then add a drizzle of oil. You want the cabbage to be lightly coated but not soggy. Then sprinkle salt or any of the other additional ingredients you wanted to include. This is all to taste, so I would recommend adding a little and increasing the measurements gradually until you get to a level you like.

Serve immediately.

You will hopefully enjoy this so much that you will make it many, many times, in which case I hope you perfect your own recipe to the way you prefer.

Serving with a Martini

Once the oil has been added the cabbage will begin to turn soggy over time so you don’t want to leave it lying around for too long. Hopefully your guests will find it as addictive as everyone else and it won’t get the chance though.

The guidelines of martini food recommend that items can be eaten with one hand. This can include yamitsuki kyabetsu if you are comfortable using chopsticks with your drink.

Even if you don’t want to add any other ingredients, bear in mind that a pinch of sesame seeds can really brighten up the appearance of the salad, even if it doesn’t alter the flavour significantly.

Otherwise, please give this a try, experiment with the ingredients and let me know how it turns out for you in the comments below.

いただきます!