How To Lose Your Fermenting Virginity. (And What's This About Mashed Potato Sauerkraut?)
Your gut (and the 80% of your immune system in there) wants you to have fermented food. Lots of it. It’s a fabulous source of highly-friendly bacteria - and all sorts of vitamins. No wonder civilisations have been fermenting for millennia… and now we can too, effortlessly.
We’ve called upon the wisdom of renowned fermentationist and author Sandor Katz to show us just how darn easy it is to make your own fermented food. Including some of the more obscure foods lurking at the back of your fridge or cupboard.
Join our sauerkraut cookalong with Sandor - video below.
Although it was a childhood love of pickles that got fermentationist revivalist, Sandor Katz, first into fermenting, it was only as an adult when he moved from New York to rural Tennessee - and had his own garden - that he realised the full potential of this dream. “Many of the world’s greatest delicacies are produced by the transformative action of microorganisms”, he explains. “Historically, everybody who’s been involved in any aspect of food production has had some sort of practice of fermentation or at least an awareness of fermentation.”
So if someone was interested in getting involved in fermenting, what would Sandor recommend? “My gateway into fermentation was sauerkraut”, he notes. “I love to recommend sauerkraut first for people.”
Sandor Katz
“It is just a perfect first project. All you need is a jar, a cutting board, a knife, some vegetables and some salt.”
It’s genuinely much easier than you would think. “You simply chop vegetables, lightly salt them, squeeze them for a few minutes to help break down cell walls and then pack them into a jar”, he explains.
Another positive, Sandor notes, is that fermented vegetables “are about the safest food to exist”. He adds, “after you ferment vegetables, they become much, much safer statistically-speaking than they were raw.” Reassuring news to those who are anxious about the risk of bacteria when fermenting.
“They complement almost any kind of savoury food. They’re full of probiotics and it’s a way to make sure you get lots of plant-based vitamins.” So with all these wondrous benefits in mind, we asked Sandor to give us some quick and easy steps to making your very own sauerkraut for the first time.
>> Watch our cookalong with Sandor - and the recipe steps are listed below
Sandor’s Sauerkraut For Total Beginners
Prep & Slicing
Before you begin, make sure you have a cutting board, a knife, cabbage, salt and a jar.
Start by cleaning the veg. Take the cabbage and cut the bottom off. Quarter it and then slice it. Don’t throw the core away - just slice it separately.
You will need a litre-sized jar which should take about a kilogram of vegetables. Make sure, when filling the jar, to leave a little bit of space at the top.
Sandor then adds some carrot but emphasises that you can add virtually any vegetable to sauerkraut. Cabbage has a much stronger and more distinctive taste (because of the high level of chlorophyll) so if this is not to your taste, Sandor recommends trying the same recipe but with courgettes.
Salting & Shredding
Once you’ve finished preparing your vegetables, add some salt. Although there are people who usually recommend 2% salt, Sandor advocates playing to your tastes. He doesn’t recommend doing it without salt, though, as this affects the taste. Also, it’s worth considering what season you are in and how long you plan to preserve the food for. If it’s in the Autumn or Winter months, adding more salt will improve longevity.
Next, you should begin to shred the vegetables. Sandor uses his hands to do this so he can squeeze the contents more fully. This process speeds up the breaking of cell walls by releasing juice from the vegetables.
At this point, have a taste. It’s always easier to add salt at this stage rather than removing it so it’s worth bearing this in mind.
Pimping It Up
Now add seasoning. A favourite of Sandor’s is juniper berries. A Russian tradition is to add dried fruit like cranberries, apples or raisins. As he says, “the only limit is our imagination.”
Back to your sauerkraut… a good test to see if your vegetables are ready is to pick up a handful of vegetables and squeeze them. The more juice there is, the more effective the fermentation process will be.
If you find you’ve horrendously over-salted, Sandor has a trick. Cover with water, let it sit for a few minutes and then pour the water off. The only problem with this is that you aren’t just removing salt, you’re also removing nutrients and flavours.
Filling the Jar
Now you’re ready to fill the jar - mason or bell jars are ideal but you can also use leftover jars from the supermarket.
Pack down the vegetables with some force which will help eliminate any kind of air pockets as you go down. As you do this, you will notice liquid rising to submerge vegetables.
You never want to fill your jar to the very top, so leave a centimetre or two of space. This is because when carbon dioxide is generated in the fermenting process, this will lift everything to the top and if it’s too full it will spill over.
Final tip - no matter how juicy the vegetables are, when you stop putting weight on them, they will absorb the excess liquid. Sandor suggests putting some extra weight to hold it down. He uses little disc weights but appreciates not many people will have these just lying around the house. So this is where the outer leaves of the cabbage become useful - save these during your vegetable prep and these will be enough to hold everything down.
Now all that’s left is to wait! The longer you leave it, the more intense the flavour will become. If you prefer a milder taste, a week is probably long enough. Otherwise, Sandor suggests for Sauerkraut newbies to taste it every three or four days. Not only will you be able to gauge how quickly the fermenting process is but you can get a better sense of what tastes work for your palette.
Mashed Potato Anyone?
One of the strangest additions Sandor has made to his sauerkraut in the past is mashed potatoes. The recipe stays the same but instead at the beginning, you chop up some potatoes, cook until they are soft, mash and let them cool down to room temperature. Layer your vegetables and mash potatoes, add some fresh radishes and you are good to go.
