The most effective sauerkraut is claimed to be made in its personal juices. The cabbage is shredded and pounded sufficient to bruise the juice out of it. The requires extraordinarily contemporary cabbage, which I do not typically have, since cabbage moths make cabbage rising an actual problem for me. Cabbage is a cheap vegetable, so I do not thoughts shopping for it to make sauerkraut. The trade-off is that it is often too outdated to pound out the juices. So, most frequently, I make sauerkraut by mixing and adding brine.
Just lately, I ran throughout a video with a unique technique for making sauerkraut. It is a four-part sequence with the first video here. As an alternative of shredding the cabbage and including the brine, the lower cabbage was salted first and allowed to sit down in a single day. Salt pulls moisture from meals (by osmosis, I reckon) and so helps the cabbage make it is personal juice. I made a decision to provide it a attempt.
| Step one is shredding the cabbage. |
After shredding, the cabbage was sprinkled with salt and combined in. The video did not point out an quantity, so I used the identical quantity of salt as my outdated recipe, 2 tablespoons for a medium head of cabbage. I coated it with a clear dishcloth and let it sit on the counter in a single day.
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| I exploit Himalayan pink salt for the minerals. |
The following morning the cabbage shreds appeared moist and I discovered that the salt had certainly pulled some juice from the cabbage.
The following step is pounding. Within the video, the gal dumped her shredded cabbage right into a 5-gallon bucket and stomped it like grapes. I opted to used my pounder.
That squished out extra juice. Not sufficient to cowl the cabbage, however the video stated in that case, cowl it with a lightweight brine. The video used contemporary dill and slices of horseradish for flavoring, however I used juniper berries and celery seeds.
After protecting the crock contents with extra brine, I submerged the cabbage shreds by protecting them with a saucer and weighting it with a pint jar half crammed with water.
Then the crock is roofed with a clear fabric an allowed to ferment.
I discover that three days is sweet for our style buds. Then I transferred it to a half-gallon jar with a lid to retailer within the fridge.
Then the style take a look at. We each love sauerkraut and actually appreciated this one. I particularly like to make use of it as a relish on a very good hamburger.
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| Bacon cheeseburger with sauerkraut. |
One different actually good tidbit I picked up from the video sequence is that sauerkraut may be frozen with out destroying the probiotics. Canning will kill them, however I often make it one cabbage at a time and refrigerate it after it is soured to the tartness we like. It does hold getting extra bitter, even within the fridge, so freezing appears like a great way to go.
Conclusion? This technique is a keeper! I will must attempt it with my different fermented greens as properly.
