About ¾ head of cabbage, over 3½ weeks, made 3 pints of sauerkraut. This is truly mysterious biochemistry with food. As I understand it, you just control the salinity of the solution, keep it out of contact with oxygen, and maintain a reasonable temperature range, and the right bacteria (Leuconostoc mesenteroides) will win. And it seems to have worked - I just put some cabbage and salt water in the basement for a few weeks, and it tastes like sauerkraut, so it definitely fermented, and presumably the good bacteria won. I canned a couple pints and kept one for the fridge.See a recipe, and look up the science in On Food and Cooking.
Doesn't this deserve the label "pickles"?
ReplyDeleteAnd do you have any posts about Kimchee... though I guess I'm headed to sea in 2.5 weeks, so the apartment might stink a lot after 6 weeks of Kim chee fermentation...