Charred Hispi Cabbage with Anchovy Butter and Pangrattato

Ingredients

• 1 large hispi (sweetheart) cabbage, about 700g
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• flaky sea salt
• black pepper
• 80g salted butter
• 6 anchovy fillets in oil, drained and finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, finely grated
• ½ tsp dried chilli flakes
• zest of 1 lemon
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 80g stale sourdough, torn into rough crumbs
• 3 tbsp garlic-infused olive oil
• small pinch of sea salt
• 2 tbsp finely chopped flat-leaf parsley

Method

1. Get your pan properly hot before anything else — a heavy cast-iron pan over high heat for a full 4–5 minutes until you can feel heat radiating from a hand held above it. Or fire up the BBQ with the coals glowing white-grey and ashed over. Cold pan means steamed cabbage; you want char, and char needs serious heat.
2. Trim any tatty outer leaves off the hispi but leave the root intact — it holds each wedge together. Cut the cabbage in half lengthways through the root, then each half into two wedges, so you have four long wedges still attached at the base. Drizzle the cut sides with olive oil and season generously with flaky salt and pepper — season it now, on the cut surface, so the salt has somewhere to grip.
3. Lay the wedges cut-side down on the screaming-hot pan and don't crowd them — work in two batches if your pan can't take all four with space between. Crowded wedges throw off steam and you'll never get char. Don't move them for 4–5 minutes: you want the edges to blister and turn black in spots — that's where the sweetness develops. Flip onto the second cut side and char for another 3–4 minutes until the leaves look properly burnished, almost alarming in places.
4. Turn the heat down to medium, lay the wedges on their rounded backs, and let them cook for a further 5–6 minutes until a knife slides into the thickest part of the root with just a little resistance — tender but not collapsed, the inner leaves should still have some bite. Lift onto a warm platter while you build the rest.
5. While the cabbage cooks, make the pangrattato. Heat the garlic-infused oil in a wide frying pan over medium heat, add the sourdough crumbs and a pinch of salt, and toss constantly for 4–5 minutes. Don't walk away — breadcrumbs go from golden to burnt in about 30 seconds. They're done when they're deep golden, properly crisp, and smell like toast. Tip onto kitchen paper and stir through the parsley once cool enough not to wilt it.
6. For the anchovy butter, melt the butter gently in a small pan over low heat — you want it foaming, not browning. Add the chopped anchovies, grated garlic and chilli flakes. Cook for about a minute until the anchovies melt into the butter and the garlic is fragrant and pale gold — don't burn it, scorched garlic turns the whole sauce bitter. Pull off the heat and stir in the lemon zest and the lemon juice; the acid cuts through the salty butter and lifts everything you've just built. Taste it — the anchovies bring most of the salt, but a final pinch ties it together.
7. Plate the charred wedges cut-side up on the warm platter. Spoon the hot anchovy butter generously over the top, letting it pool into the leaves and run down into the cracks — every layer needs to catch some. Shower with the pangrattato so it sticks to the buttery surface, scatter the extra parsley leaves and a pinch more chilli flakes, and tuck the lemon wedges in alongside for squeezing at the table.