Thursday, August 13, 2015

In the kitchen

...fermenting vegetables 

I've been making saurkraut for a while, but have really been wanting to make a mixed vegetable fermentation, but kept thinking.......oh too hard, don't have the proper jars etc.  I went to a workshop a few months back, where I watched and learned but still didn't take the plunge, just continued with the cabbage on it's own......and then the Farmer's Market at Blue Knob, a hamlet about half an hour south of here, had a Fermentation Festival, where I tasted the most divine mixed vegetable kraut imaginable.  It was made by a local woman who casually chopped and broke up a mix of vegetables, eyeballed the brine mix and stuffed it all in jars, talking and answering questions and telling anecdotes about her failures and successes, all at the same time.

Part of the crowd enjoying the various fermentation talks
This young Vietnamese woman gave a great demonstration of how to make miso paste, a very time intensive process. 
snapshots of Blue Knob Farmer's Market

So I thought...I can do that!  but still didn't quite get around to it....you know how it is, other things to do that take priority, oh and there was that fall I had off the ladder...painful to stand chopping vegetables......until today!  I've done it.
Lovely jewels

It was the local Farmer's Market yesterday, so off I went with my shopping list of veggies I wanted for my kraut, and came home with this bounty. It's all organic except for the cauliflower and cabbage, and they're no-spray.  All are grown within 20 kms of town, picked the afternoon before and brought to the market nice and early. 

I spent this morning washing and chopping, and I took some pics as I went along to show you how I did it, in case anyone else is thinking they just have to make vegetable kraut. Cabbage first, as it needed to be salted and massaged, this softens it, and releases a lot of the water, which is added to the jars later.  Blurry pic, sorry, but cabbage is cabbage.



A mix of vegetables chopped and ready to be loaded into jars and the brine added...........


Here I have cauliflower, which I broke into medium size pieces, carrots, quartered longways and chopped, zucchini, the same, there are beans and broccoli from a friend's garden, including the broccoli stems.  I added 2 large garlic cloves, smashed and a chunk of ginger, chopped roughly......these are both organic from the Farmer's Market..... and a half a home-grown chilli.  I could've added dill, peppercorns, cloves  or other spices of my choosing, but since I didn''t have any, I just used what I had to hand.

For my brine, I used 2 cups of filtered water .....not tap water, you don't want chlorine and other chemicals in your yummy vegetables.....and a tablespoon and half of coarse sea salt.  It must be sea salt, not iodized kitchen salt, as the iodine prevents fermentation and can make your kraut taste pretty awful. You can adjust the amount of salt to your preferred taste, using between 1 and 1 and a half tablespoons of salt...after trial and error with the cabbage I found this suits me...I'll see how it goes with the mixed vegetables and adjust next time if it doesn't suit.....some recipes suggest 2 tablespoons, but I found this too salty for me.

So then I spooned all the vegetables into jars that I'd washed and sterilised in the oven, and to one, I added some pieces of chopped turmeric, fresh from a friend's garden, just to see if I like it.  I know turmeric's good for us, but it doesn't mean it's going to make my kraut taste good.  I pushed the vegetables down to get rid of air bubbles, then poured the brine over, leaving a couple of inches space at the top for expansion.  Pushing it all down again, I put a cabbage leaf on top, pushing again, so the vegetables stayed under the brine.  The leaf acts as a weight to keep the vegetables under the brine.



I did a bit of research before making my kraut, just to see what sort of vegetables fermented well, and what to leave alone and some of the sites and blogs I looked at suggested using kraut-crocks...fancy ceramic pots with special weights to hold the vegetables down.....I priced these and at $70 + each, plus postage, I decided to give them a miss, and instead bought these 3 wide mouth jars at the cheap shop for $2.99 each, and the taller one I'd bought kraut in the previous week at the Whole Foods Store, so cleaned it up, and reused it. Costwise, that tall jar cost me $14 ..... the produce from the Farmer's Market was $18, but not all of that went into the kraut, as I bought eggplant, potatoes and avocados as well, and don't have a breakdown of individual items, but still excellent value I think.....the small jars filled weigh 1100gms and the tall recycled one holds just under that. Without being too precise, 4 jars for around the price of one.....not bad, since I eat this with every meal.  I haven't talked about the health benefits, but it's enough for me to know it's good for me, but there's lots of information out there if you'd like to know more, just google fermented food.  Here's a couple of my favourite places to get you started -http://www.nourishingmeals.com/2012/02/how-to-make-lacto-fermented-vegetables.html
and http://www.almostbananas.net/our-family-favourite-ferment-cauliflower/
http://thestonesoup.com/blog/2014/08/simple-sauerkraut-recipe-a-favour/

I'll now leave the jars on the kitchen bench, out of direct sunlight, and in a couple of days, will "burp" them, to let excess gases escape.  Then by day 4 or 5 I can have a taste and if it's to my liking, it can go in the fridge and I can start eating it, but if I want a stronger flavour, I'll leave it out longer, tasting daily until it's just right.  I can't wait!

And all those trimmings off the vegetables...the chooks enjoyed those.


till next time.........

13 comments:

  1. Your vegetable kraut looks delicious.

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    1. It does, doesn't it? I can't wait to try it.

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  2. I've always found fermented foods just taste spoiled to my palate, and I don't enjoy pickles much. Perhaps I should experiment with home made, and just do one jar to see how I like it, because I do know how good for you they are.

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    1. the thing I like about fermented food Kate is you get to make it to your own taste, the longer you leave it out to ferment, the more sour it gets, so instead of 5 days fermenting, you could try 3. If it's not quite what you want, take it out the fridge again for a couple of days. It will probably ferment quicker up your way because of the temperature. Mine will be ready by the time you visit, you can try them and see what you think. The other thing is, start small.....a teaspoon once a day for a few days is enough until you adjust to the taste and your body adjusts to all the new goodies...too much too soon, and kaboom :)

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    2. You know where you say you have to salt and massage the cabbage? How much salt, how much massage, and does the salty water all go into the brine, or do you wash the cabbage before you put it in? I wish we'd managed to meet up last time, because I'd have loved a taste to know if I can stand the flavour! But I'm going to give it a go: I have my jar, and I'm going to do red cabbage, capsicum, apple and cauliflower, a favourite combo.

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    3. Hi Kate, glad you're trying fermenting veggies, I hope you love them. I use a tablespoon and a half of salt to a litre of water, which I pour over the veggies once they're in their jars/s. You might not use all of it, just enough to make sure the veg are covered. Most of the recipes I read suggested 2 or even 2 and a half tablespoons salt, I found this a bit salty for my taste and kept adjusting until it suited me, so you might want to play with it a bit too. I just used a little salt to massage the cabbage with, a teaspoon or so, and then any water that comes out, I add to the brine. I found with the last lot I made there wasn't a lot of water, so don't worry if this doesn't happen, but the cabbage felt different after it's massage. You can skip this step if you like, but I find it tenderises the cabbage enough to help it ferment along with the other veg. When I do just cabbage I don't bother so much. I give all my veggies a good rinse, you want to remove any nasties, mainly those from people handling the produce, but not all the good bacteria, as these are what are going to help your jars ferment. Your combo sounds great, I haven't tried apple yet....mainly because I had none and just wanted to ferment and not run out to the shops. Let us know how you get on.

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  3. My eldest makes her own fermented veges and has become quite good at it. I like them, but have never gotten around to including them in my daily diet - even though I know how good they are for gut health. Your jars look very inviting and the whole post is encouraging........ As I've just started a new 'take myself in hand' kick this post may have an effect on where I go next :-)

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    1. I hop you have a go Pauline...apart from having a healthy yummy tasting addition to your meals, it's satisfying to know you're taking responsibility for your own heath. It's good your daughter has started fermenting, she'll be able to help you along the way. My daughter was visiting recently from the States, when we talk or Skype it's always about important things, like the kids and her new granddaughter...my g/gdaughter....so we had a laugh when we both produced our big jars of fermented vegetables to have with our meal, we'd both started at the same time but hadn't talked about it. Be sure to do a blog post on your fermenting, I'll be intereste to see how you go with it.

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  4. Hmm, now you've got me thinking! I've tried sauerkraut a number of times and each time the same result - it goes off before it's ready. Now I'm thinking it could have been the salt, from memory I probably used iodised! Your mixed veg looks great, I've also wanted to try this but too scared due to the cabbage failure.

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  5. Nanette, I'm so pleased I've found you via you finding me on Judy's blog list. Convoluted but very satisfactory. To find the first post I've read is about kraut is very exciting and I'm pretty sure I'll have to try it. My mother and her parents were Viennese and my grandfather always made sauerkraut and the most stunning dill cucumbers. He died without sharing recipes and I've had various tries at the cucumbers with varying success. Have you done cucumbers? I'm about to add you to my email list so that I don't miss anything! Happy Springtime, it must be gorgeous up at Murwillumbah.

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  6. I have always wanted to try fermented veggies, especially cucumbers....so like Carol, I would be interested to know if you have done them. Thanks for your comment on my blog Nanette, I will keep an eye on yours now too.

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  7. For Gail, Kelly and Carol...hi all, thanks for visiting. I haven't made fermented cukes, firstly because they don't really appeal to me, and secondly, I thought they might fit into the "too much water" category to ferment well before before becoming mushy messes. So I did a bit of research and found this blog entry on http://phickle.com/we-can-phickle-that-tricky-pickle-edition/ which confirms my thoughts about the water. She does go on to talk about making them successfully, so have a read, I'm sure you'll find it helpful. Let me know how they turn out if you to decide to have a go. Good luck.

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  8. I'm very new in the fermenting world, I am on my second jar of sauerkraut. I love your vege kraut and am definitely going to give this a go next time! They look delicious and full of goodness, thanks for the inspiration x

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