A Month of Nothing Produces

After a month of sitting in the basement, I now have a very large amount of sauerkraut at the ready.

At first the cabbage simply smelled of flatulence and fermenting, but after about two and a half weeks that changed over into the more acidic and biting smell of the sauerkraut you're probably accustomed to. Apparently the bacteria that are active in the kraut come in waves: the first wave produces a less pleasant odor and slowly starts to raise the acidity of the brine; this kills off the first batch and allows a different strain of bacteria to take over (preferring the more acidic environment). With the new bacteria comes a new smell and taste. Our last batch of kraut was sweet in flavor, but this is tangy like it should be.

Next time I would definitely shred the cabbage using a grater for finer strips (this batch is a little too substantial).

Next up: kim chi

Brown Butter Cabbage

A lot of vegetables looks amazing when fresh and sitting in front of you, but savoy cabbage is good enough for a photo shoot. As we've been eating seasonally, two things have become apparent. First, we need to move to California. Second, cabbage and all its variants must have been in a love/hate relationship with pre-Industrial era societies.

One thing that certainly helps is butter. Cabbage, when shredded and cooked very lightly, actually has a nice crunch and flavor to it. This is one of my favorite preparations (and best of all, it's simple). From "Good Eats with Alton Brown: Veggie Eats 2"

• 1/2 stick unsalted butter
  
• 1/2 cup pulverized croutons (you'll want them seasoned, not bread crumbs)
  
• 2 pinches dry mustard
  
• 1 tspn caraway seeds
  
• 1 tbspn kosher salt
  
• 1 tbspn sugar
  
• 1 small head cabbage, shredded
  

Get some water on the boil for the cabbage. You'll be adding the sugar and salt to it just before cooking off the cabbage.

Before that, melt the butter and add the croutons. Throw in the caraway seeds and the mustard, then let this cook over medium heat until it's browned and nutty smelling. Remove from the heat but keep it in its cooking pan.

Now boil the shredded cabbage for two minutes before draining it and drying it (via spinning). Then combine it with the butter.

The croutons add a nice crunchy texture and the butter and caraway give some depth.

And this is just food porn (also from the same vendor).

Sauerkraut

We've been eating more seasonally and going to the local farmers' markets on the weekend to source most of our ingredients for the week. That's been great in the summer and fall. But as winter now takes hold, things get a little more bare out there. The only thing to do is to embrace what humans have been doing for centuries: preserve!

The easiest thing to start with seemed like a nice sauerkraut. We had made a smaller version (only about a pint) earlier, but armed with a modest degree of experience we paid a visit to the local restaurant supply store and picked up two food-grade plastic prep dishes. These fit inside one another perfectly and added up to a great leap ahead of the glass jars we had been using previously.

The process is pretty straight-forward: Take as many cabbages as you can stand, shred them, then toss with a good couple pinches of salt per head. Then pack the shredded cabbage into the (very clean) vessel. By pack, I mean literally punch, beat, or otherwise compress the cabbage down on itself. I used the end of our rolling pin to accomplish this, but I think in the future I would use something with a little more surface area. After they're packed, the second jar slides into the first and a weight is added to press down onto the cabbage.

The salt will slowly draw the water out of the cabbage, which will form a brine that the leaves will be submerged in. The weight keeps the leaves under the brine and out of the mold-zone. For four large heads, I got a little over 2.5 litres of packed kraut.

Tomorrow I'm moving it into the basement for a month. I'll be sure to include updates.