Sauerkraut

This is a pretty basic recipe, I just wanted to document it because every recipe I have encountered for fermenting your own sauerkraut was vague and had a lot of unaccounted variables. This one is accurate to the gram, which I think(should be right?), is helpful.
Ingredients:
700g cabbage, thinly sliced
210g water
14g salt
5g garlic, thinly sliced
1g black pepper, freshly ground
Method:
Toss everything until it is evenly mixed in a large bowl. Pack everything into a bowl(probably a new, smaller one) that will be half full after pressing the cabbage very tightly(you really want to press on it).
Place a bowl that fits snuggly into the bowl holding the cabbage, directly on top of the cabbage. Place a weight in the top bowl so that some of the brine is displaced upwards. You want the brine to come up a few inches below the rim of the bowl, with the cabbage being left a few inches below that. It should look like this:

The bottom bowl holds the cabbage, with the top bowl pressing down hard. This forces the brine above the cabbage, protecting the cabbage from the air and only allowing a small amount of brine in contact with oxygen.

Let this contraption sit out for 4 days at 75F-85F(temperature is important for the speed and type of fermentation that will occur), checking on it every other day. You do not need to stir during this process, just make sure it doesn't look spoiled. After 4 days, and as long as no mold has grown and the brine hasn't thickened into a gloopy mess(if that happens or anything else happens that makes it look like you shouldn't eat it something has gone wrong, but I've done this method many times(not just with cabbage) and never had a problem), taste the sauerkraut and decide if you want it more acidic. If you do, let it sit out longer, it will keep fermenting. If you like where it is, transfer to a fridge friendly container and place it next to the milk.

The finished product

I've eaten some of this stuff 10 months after making it, and I would bet that it could last much longer.

I love tasty preservation.

Acidly,

Adam

Pickles (Lacto-Fermented)

I've been seeing pickles everywhere on Manhattan menus. It seems that the way to make it cool is label them house/home made and use vegetables the majority of people would not think of as pickles. A menu that reads, under the starter/appetizer/snack section of menu, "Plate of Seasonal House-made Pickles $10" is becoming more common. All of these are going to be made with some spices, salt, and vinegar. Most will probably include some sugar or something else sweet. As much as I love vinegar pickles, I decided to try and develop an easy way to ferment pickles at home with nothing more than salt, water, and the veggies. This method produces pickles that taste like the vegetables. Also, the flavor of the lactic acid that is produced is very different from the acetic acid in vinegar. This is not a new idea, but here is what I found works best.

Ingredients:

Salt

Water

Veggies

Whey

Method:

Make enough brine for the amount of vegetables you want to pickle. They need to be covered in brine. Do this by making a 3.5 percent salt solution with room temperature water and salt (100g of water 3.5g salt). Then add to this brine 20 percent of the weight of the water in whey. Place your vegetables into a quart container(or another container you can easily prevent air from getting to the vegetables with) and cover with the brine. Take another quart container and place on top of the brine. Add enough water to the top quart so that the brine moves up around the top quart, but not so much as the brine overflows (look at these photos to see how the top quart limits the air contact with the brine and vegetables). Let sit for 36 hours at room temperature and then stir and taste. The longer you leave the vegetables out the more they will ferment. I've never gone longer than a week, and that was with garlic(it turned blue!)

Additional Comments:

After they generate enough acidity at room temperature, these pickles will keep for a very long time in the fridge.

I generate whey by curdling milk to make fresh cheese. The basic process is heat milk/cream with an acid until it curdles, then strain. The liquid is whey.

Straining yogurt is another easy way to get your hands on some whey. The yogurt may be your best bet if you make it yourself, because this whey will have active lacto-fermenting bacteria already in it.

The whole reason I add the whey is to make the brine a happy place from the bacteria and yeasts that I want to grow. They like the brine and lactic acid more than the bacteria and yeasts I don't want, and therefore flourish and wipe out the unwanted ones. Plus the bacteria are going to make lactic acid which is already in the whey. You could just add some lactic acid powder if you have that, it works just as well as the whey. You could even skip the fermentation process all together and just make a very acidic solution of salt, lactic acid, and water and put the veggies into it. It would be a more clean and pure tasting version of this pickle.

Now that I have a farm going, I use some of the extra pickle liquid from old batches instead of the whey. I have so much that I never use the whey anymore. The old pickling liquid works to ferment the new pickles very quickly, so your subsequent batches need to be checked on more frequently.

Depending on what vegetable you want to pickle you may have to cook it slightly. I think crunchiness is essential for a true pickle, so most are great raw (cucumber, radish, turnip, carrot), but others benefit from softening a little(beet, rutabaga, parsley root). Although, some may even enjoy these hard vegetables raw. Keep in mind that the veggies will soften slightly during fermentation (especially softer specimens like cucumber).

I pickle my cucumber with calcium rich gray salt in the brine so that the end result is crunchier, the calcium and other ions in this impure salt help maintain cellular structure and generate a firmer pickle.

Plate it up!

Lacto-fermented pickles and pork rinds

Clockwise from the top left: radish, turnip, heart of palm, carrot, cucumber, and parsley root.

Again!

Pickles, sunflower sprouts, yogurt, sriracha, fish sauce, and short grain rice

(I eat this a lot after service, and because its for me I don't make it so pretty)

Subsequently,

Adam