My friend Jennie wants to save money on probiotics. Probiotics are spendy. Yet, she’s uncertain on how to go about fermenting foods for herself to get those beneficial organisms into her gut. Sauerkraut is the easiest, simplest, can’t-possibly-go-wrong way to ferment food, in my opinion. So, this week I am making sauerkraut on Fermenting Friday.
More accurately I’m making kimchi. I found this Mama O’s premium super spicy kimchi paste the last time I braved a trip into the local swanky natural foods store chain. The paste is going to allow me to avoid making kimchi from scratch, which is a whole other blog post.
I started my adventures in fermenting with basic sauerkraut. I wrote a how to make sauerkraut page if you’d like a more detailed step by step instruction with photos.
Cabbage is cheap so you won’t feel like you’ve wasted money if it doesn’t turn out. It also allows you to practice making fermented foods. A LOT. Because cheap.
There isn’t really a recipe per se for sauerkraut. Shred cabbage, make it juicy, submerge cabbage in juice, store it in anaerobic conditions, wait while checking on it periodically.
Simple but not necessarily easy.
Preparing fermented foods is more of an art than a science. Sure, there is a lot of interesting scientific information underlying the process. There are many variables in how the end product ends up. Hence the need for you to experiment in a playful non-scientific way. You’re going to have mistakes and failures. That’s ok. Having fun with the process goes a long way towards making it easier to incorporate fermenting into your life.
I’m making a series of “how to” pages. The how to make sauerkraut one is the first of many. It shows me going through the process if you’d like to peek at how I’m making sauerkraut. Pictures are by the amazing Collective 70 photography.
[…] Last time I made sauerkraut on Fermenting Friday I decided to try out Mama O’s super spicy kimchi paste to create an easy kimchi. I let my batch ferment about two weeks and finally tasted it today. […]