Wednesday 26 September 2012

Sauerkraut with beetroot!



This Beetroot Kraut has the usual mix of:

one cabbage
two onions
one clove of garlic
about 1 tablespoon of sea salt (see salt guide for more guidance).
and
two medium beetroots

Just thinly slice the cabbage and onions, dice the garlic finely and grate the beets. Add the salt and mix together. Crush the ingredients until they become softer and the water starts to come out and pack into a sterile jar (see container guide if unsure about which container to use). Seal ensuring the vegetables are completely submerged in the brine and leave for a week or two to ferment!

Here is a link to another video I did which has step by step instructions on how to make the kraut for anyone who is unsure:

How to make sauerkraut with onions!

And here is a link to an article where I got the information on how effective beets are at promoting fermentation:


Thursday 16 August 2012

Why is my sauerkraut slimy?

OK, there are a lot of opinions about this out there, mostly claiming that too little salt causes this. In my experience the level of salt has little to do with the "slime". The only time this has happened to one of my batches was when I left the recently chopped cabbage with added salt to draw out the brine over night before packing it into the sterilised jar to ferment. Leaving the cabbage to "rest" for a while after crushing the cabbage draws out extra brine and makes it easier to create enough to cover the kraut without having to do as much work. I usually leave it for an hour or so, but I was a bit tired and decided to cover it and finish packing the kraut in the morning instead. After a few weeks the kraut looked normal at first, but when we took some out it was slimy and smelt very slightly different - it went straight in the bin.

I believe what caused this is that the fermentation process was affected when some of it took place in an oxygen rich environment, rather than the anaerobic environment created in the jar when the cabbage is packed and submerged in the brine. In other words, leaving the salted cabbage out of the jar for too long encourages the fermentation to begin outside of the controlled environment of the sealed jar, which encourages a different profile of flora and therefore a different fermentation process to take place, which affects the consistency of the brine.

To resolve this, just make sure you don't leave the cabbage out for too long before packing it in. Also make sure that the seal on the jar is tight by using an appropriate container, and that the cabbage is completely submerged in the brine before fermenting. All of these steps help ensure that your cabbage is fermenting in an optimum environment, which will minimise the risk of a batch going "slimy".

Thursday 10 May 2012

The Boo, The Bear and the goji berries: How to prepare yerba mate

For any of you who are fond of Yerba Mate, you can see me guest blogging on a video for The Boo the Bear and the goji berries, showing you how to make traditional yerba mate:

The Boo, The Bear and the goji berries: How to prepare yerba mate: Here in the UK mate is still a very mysterious drink. It has baffled many a friend of ours who visits, most of them upon seeing this strang...

Enjoy....

Monday 9 April 2012

How to make sauerkraut, with onions!

A little video on making sauerkraut for you to enjoy...


All this has is:

1. One white cabbage
2. One red cabbage
3. Two carrots
4. Three onions

You can see the rest on the video!

Saturday 6 August 2011

Batch #4 - with chilli, fennel herb, carrot and red, white and spring cabbage

OK - this week I am trying something a little new (to me anyways): spicy sauerkraut! For this one I used:

Ingredients:

1 white cabbage
1 red cabbage
1 spring cabbage
6 carrots
1 big clove of garlic
1 chilli
2.5 tablespoons of sea salt (all the veg came to 2.5 kg)