Saturday Miscellany #3

I was unable to make any videos this week due to severe allergies - it is tree pollen season in NC. For those of y’all who have never been here in the spring, this pic will give you an idea:

That photo was taken of Durham a couple of years ago and made the news. The pollen is actually much worse this year in central NC due to a very mild winter. I’m still staying near Fayetteville, helping a family member until mid-April or so.

For that reason, I don’t have my fermenting equipment with me. So, when my relative asked me to make some sauerkraut, I had to take my own advice as I explained in my cookbook, The Omnivore’s Guide to Home Cooking:

Now, lets go to the other end of the fermented vegetable spectrum with Sauerkraut. Kraut is fermented with salt, alone. Although, I suspect some store brands use vinegar, because they taste far too sour and not very salty. You can add spices, caraway seeds, even green apple or garlic to your kraut. But, all that is necessary is cabbage, and a way to keep air out. You can grate your cabbage fine or, as I do, chop it into very thin ribbons. Choose a good, firm, medium sized cabbage. I usually wash the cabbage, then peel of maybe four outer leaves and reserve them. I slice the cabbage in half, then into quarters. As I chop each quarter, I add it to a large bowl and sprinkle a spoonful of plain salt over it. So, when I am done, I have 4 layers of cabbage between 4 layers of salt. I save the core and put it with the outer leaves. For your first batch, you will likely want to use 1 teaspoon salt per pound of cabbage (which is usually around 2 tablespoons total). I usually use plain, non-iodized, table salt. But, kosher salt and sea salt (etc) have a bit nicer flavor. Just make sure it is plain, non-iodized salt because iodine can interfere with your fermentation. Work the salt into the cabbage with your hands. You can pound it in with a mallet if you are doing larger batches. Either way, the goal is to thoroughly bruise each piece of cabbage so that the bowl fills with brine as the salt pulls it out from the leaves. Next, you have to pack the cabbage into a container tightly. I usually use glass jars, but a non-reactive crock is more traditional. For your first batch, I recommend a very clean, glass quart sized jar. Really pack the cabbage in tightly and then fill the jar with the brine. If you estimated the volume right, the cabbage and brine will completely fill the jar. If not, fill the “head space” with the outer leaves you saved, folding them and pressing them down, along with the core pieces if necessary. Now, we have to seal all the air out, but allow the carbon dioxide that fermentation will produce to escape in order to avoid a bubble over or explosion. If any air can get inside, it will oxidize the cabbage it touches, and could even cause rot. That is another reason for adding the outer leaves and core pieces – if, they turn dark, you can discard them and the kraut under the brine should still be fine. If you have a jar lid with an air lock specifically made for fermenting kraut and pickles, use it. If you have a pickling crock with a weight that goes on top to keep your kraut under the brine, use that. If you have none of the above, you can slip the opening of a rubber glove over the mouth of the jar and secure it in place with a rubber band. The rubber glove will keep air out and will inflate with carbon dioxide. Or, you can come up with the myriad ways I have tried to solve this problem over the years, and probably some I never thought of! I think the rubber glove method is very good for beginners, because you will see it inflate and you will know your cabbage is fermenting. It also makes the project more fun for kids. Put your kraut in a place where it is protected from direct light and the temperature will remain fairly stable – neither too hot or cold, like room temp. Whatever you use, your kraut should begin to bubble within 1-5 days. You may need to sit the jar in a bowl or plate if some brine seeps out. After 10 days or so, you can give it a taste. If it is sour enough to your taste, transfer it to the refrigerator to slow (nearly stop) the fermentation. If it needs more times, let it go – if no air got to it, you cabbage will now be preserved and good to eat for years even if stored at room temperature. One spoonful of your homemade kraut will have more, and a greater variety, of probiotic bacteria and fungi than an entire bottle of supplement capsules.

That is a great start. Take it from there and try out different additional flavorings. Figure out the perfect sourness to your taste. But, what if you want your kraut to be less salty and more crunchy? What if you even want a hint of sweetness left in the Kraut. Then, you will need to kick start the fermentation by adding either whey (a byproduct of dairy ferments) or the next ferment we will discuss, kombucha. I prefer to add kombucha because it is also tannic. The tannins help keep vegetables crisp, which is great for kraut, but essential for pickled cucumbers. I recommend making your own kombucha and adding some sour kombucha to all vegetable ferments. Be sure to save some brine from your kraut though, because you can also start ferments with that and sometimes you may prefer the specific flavors of the kraut brine.

I took this pic after 24 hours of fermentation and it definitely looked ‘Okay”!

That trick of adding a little Kombucha and/or brine from a previous batch really gets your fermentation off to a much faster start than salt alone. That saves worry and bother with contamination from the outside air. By day two, the glove was about to pop! I let the pressure off and by day 3 fermentation had slowed down dramatically. That means, technically I made kraut in less than 4 days! That is something the books say cannot be done. Today, it has been a week and the flavor is excellent. It will continue to improve so I won’t refrigerate it for a few more days - refrigeration really isn’t necessary to preserve kraut, but it allows you to hold it at just the right flavor to suit your taste. I only had 1 tablespoon of plain salt in the pantry when I made this batch. So, I only used one tablespoon of plain table salt for an entire medium sized head of cabbage, and the ferment worked… another thing the books say cannot be done!

Well, that is the Miscellany for this week. Just remember, you can make kraut with very little equipment, in a very short time, and have delicious food full of the probiotics essential to health. BTW, my cookbook has dozens of fermentation and pickling recipes. If you haven’t done so already, please check it out. It is getting great reviews!

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