In the course of my research into the post I wrote on Princess Diana I bought Eating Royally, a recipe book written by Darren McGrady, who’d cooked for the royal family at Windsor Castle before moving with the Princess to Kensington Palace.

Some of the recipes aren’t all that practical for normal mortals, but a surprising number are. Two are particularly excellent, and this was one of them, which I’ve adapted make it even easier.

It goes especially well with plain chicken – for example with spatchcocked chicken marinated in yoghurt – or with gammon, and a soft green salad with dried cranberries.

This freezes well, so even if you’re not cooking for eight it’s worth cooking the whole lot and freezing half. It also keeps quite well in the fridge for three or four days.

For other cabbage recipes on Saucy Dressings follow this link.

If you wanted to turn this into a vegetarian dish you need some thing earthy and salty instead of the lardons. Maybe marinated feta (post to come) but you can buy this in jars.

Or you could substitute shiitake mushrooms fried with Urfa pepper (for ‘earthy’) and smoked Cornish sea salt

Or try breadcrumbs or croutons with generous amount of smoked salt and Urfa pepper as above.

Recipe for right royal creamy cabbage

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 1 large Savoy cabbage
• 200g/7 oz lardons – or see above for vegetarian substitutes
• 6 cloves of garlic
• 720ml/3 cups double cream
• Salt
• Indonesian long pepper
• 100g/4 oz/1 cup grated parmesan
• olive oil for frying

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC. and boil a full kettle.
2. Take any flabby, thick outer leaves off the cabbage and discard. Cut the cabbage in half vertically and cut out the central core. Shred the rest.
3. Pour the boiled water into a big saucepan (big enough the hold the cabbage) and bring it to the boil. Add a tablespoon of salt.
4. Add the cabbage and simmer for 15 minutes. Put into a colander and drain, pressing down with a plate to get as much of the water out as you can.
5. Meanwhile pour the cream into a non-stick saucepan, heat gently and allow to reduce to half its original volume.
6. And while that’s happening, fry the lardons in a very little oil (they shouldn’t need much – they will fry in their own fat). Peel and crush the garlic, and add to the lardons.
7. Put the drained cabbage into an ovenproof dish. Top with the lardons and garlic. Pour over the cream. Grind over some pepper and sprinkle over the Parmesan.
8. Cook for twenty minutes until the cream bubbles enticingly and the Parmesan begins to melt into it.