I'd be remiss if I didn't share with you the aforementioned fermented salsa. I can't believe I didn't blog about it last summer! It was too salty for everyone else in the house, but as I
Looks like "regular" salsa, right? Well it IS "regular" salsa! It's just sat out a few days to ferment. I used tomatoes & onions from my garden, bell peppers & hot peppers (I forget which variety) from a farmer's market and salt. You dice it all up, throw a bunch of salt in and let it sit out for 2-3 days. It was yum. Total yum.
Ok, so for sauerkraut it's really about as easy-maybe easier-as making salsa! You buy a cabbage, shred it (I sliced mine super thin with a chef knife), then you sprinkle some salt on it and pound the heck out of it to pull the liquid out of the cabbage. The cabbage will "shrink" or reduce. The pounding takes a good 45 minutes-have helpers around to help pound.
Once pounded, dump the cabbage and liquid into a quart canning jar. A smallish cabbage will end up fitting into a quart jar! If there isn't enough liquid to cover, add a little water. Then let it
It will look like this at first:
That is one smallish cabbage, sliced, pounded and sitting on my counter. I filled a ziploc bag with water and put it on the top to take up the air space and keep the cabbage submerged. It sat out for a good 3 weeks.
Here's what it looked like when we ate it:
It was the same color and scent as store bought sauerkraut, but the texture was a bit crisper. You honestly couldn't tell the difference! I liked that it had a bit of "crunch" left in it. Bryce liked it raw, I called it "sauerkraut pickles" to get him to eat it, and Brad and I enjoyed it with some brats. It was very good and very inexpensive and so easy to do! I think I'll grow my own cabbage this summer and see if home-grown cabbage makes a difference in taste.
Mold--some recipes on the internet have said that you might have to scrape mold from the top layer of kraut. I had no mold. I don't know how long it would keep. Ours sat out for a good 3 weeks then I stuck it in the fridge. I'm guessing if you were a bit heavy-handed on the salt, it might keep in the fridge for a month or so. But I can't imagine it not being
Give it a try yourself & please let me know how it came out!
It will keep for months and months in the fridge. This was the way that cabbage was preserved all winter before refrigeration. In an air lock (like you had with that plastic bag on top) it will keep 2 years or longer on the shelf. (pick a cool dry place to be safe).
ReplyDeleteAnd you forgot to mention that this turns cabbage into a high vitamin c treat. This was what prevented scurvy in sailors before citrus. Barrels of fermented cabbages. Some people/places ferment them whole in barrels.
Yay! I'm so glad everyone liked it. We're very partial to it here. What I thought would last 4 months lasted 3 weeks, so I doubled this batch. It goes into the basement tonight for the next 3 weeks. My big ol' fermenting crock been taking up WAY too much kitchen counter space for the last week. The mold is only when it gets airborne. If you keep it covered with a lid, it shouldn't be an issue. I kept peeking into my kraut, so I had quite a bit. Oops. VERY hard to get over when you're the one cleaning it out. We need to start having fermenting food parties. We'll experiment with new foods and all get together to try them! I'm thinking of buying Wild Fermentation once of these days for the fun factor. ;) I've gotten so weird in my old age.
ReplyDeleteI had no idea it was safe to do such a thing...really?
ReplyDeleteYes ma'am, totally safe!!! Sauerkraut is really just rotted cabbage. The store bought kind has been heat processed, so it's killed off the good bacteria. When you ferment it at home, all the good bacteria stays! Think of it as natural probiotics =) It's so cheap and so easy to do, we'll never buy store bought kraut again.
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