Lately I’ve been feeling like my gut and digestive system could use a tune up (not to mention dealing with a recent bout of heartburn/GERD), so I decided to make a nice root vegetable ferment. My body loves lacto-fermented foods, and I had some beautiful carrots and rutabagas from the CSA this week, plus onion, garlic, and ginger were in the house. I also added some red pepper flakes to make it a little spicy.
I washed off the vegetables (and got rid of the carrot hairs), but didn’t peel them, since there are microbes on the outside of the vegetables that help in the fermentation process. I grated the rutabagas and carrots, chopped the onion into small pieces, and minced the garlic (2 peeled cloves) and an inch chunk of (unpeeled) ginger.
I added a good shake of red pepper flakes—maybe 1/2 a tsp. Then I added 1 tbs of kosher salt, which doesn’t have iodine (that also interferes with the fermentation process). Continue reading “Making a Root Vegetable Ferment”
So, last Tuesday was our final Hellgate CSA distribution of 2011. I won’t deny that it will be strange not picking up later tonight. What we got last week was:
1 bunch lacinato kale
1 celeriac
1 pound carrots
1 pound rutabagas
1 head cauliflower
1 bag sunchokes
I’ve eaten half the kale and carrots. The sunchokes were used for carrot-sunchoke fritters. Celeriac for remoulade. Rutabagas will be for roasting, as will the cauliflower.
It’s been a while since I posted about our CSA share, and I’ve missed that. We’re really into the fall vegetables and fruit these days – apples and pears especially, plus root vegetables. Week 22 brought us:
1 bunch of kale
1 bulb of celeriac
1 pound winter radishes
1 bunch kohlrabi (though I got two bunches – they weren’t so popular)
3 pounds carrots
1 head lettuce
2 pounds bosc pears
1 pound empire apples
1 pound mutsu apples
I made kale chips out of the kale, seasoned with rosemary herb salt made by my friends at Gardenfreude. The kohlrabi and some of the carrots went into the kimchi I fermented this past week. Loved the apples for snacking. I will make a celeriac remoulade later this week. I love, love, LOVE celeriac, especially in a remoulade. This celery root and apple salad is also delicious.
This past week was a comparatively small share. We’re still seeing summer vegetables – tomatoes and green beans – and the onslaught of fall apples and pears is upon us. Good thing I like apples and pears!
We got:
1 bunch of mizuna
2 pounds tomatoes (not pictured)
1 bunch carrots
1 bitter melon
1 butternut squash
1 pound green beans
2 pounds bosc pears
2 pounds honeycrisp apples
1 pound empire apples
This week we definitely got a glimpse of fall – enter the winter squash! Exciting, to say the least – I am a huge fan of winter squashes. Additionally, we got:
1 bunch carrots
1 pound green beans
1 head escarole
1 pound sweet peppers
1 pint mini tomatoes (not shown)
(1 acorn squash)
2 pounds apples
2 pounds pears
2 pound concord grapes
The carrots will be fermented; the green beans turned into dilly beans. The tomatoes have just been eaten out of hand pretty much. The escarole is quite bitter, so I’ll likely braise it somehow, perhaps with bacon!
I plan to pickle the grapes.
Apart from these fruits and vegetables, I received a tomato canning share – 20-25 pounds of plum tomatoes.
They look and feel great so far, and I plan to make crushed tomatoes with them. If they do as well as I expect they will, I’ll order another box for next week! Slow roasted tomatoes, yum.
This week was a meat & dairy week, so it was great to replenish my stock of ground beef and turkey sausage. I also ordered two cheese from Nettle Meadow Farm – Kunik and Three Sisters. Both are excellent, but Kunik is out of this world! A very luxurious cheese.
Also, I ordered a batch of “Battenkill Brittle,” which is a kind of crunchy, sweet, seedy brittle. It’s sweetened with brown rice syrup and maple syrup, though it’s not super sweet at all.
I’m a big fan of lacto-fermented foods, and I especially like lacto-fermented vegetables. I love sauerkraut but I especially love fermented root vegetables. I fell in love with them after the fermentation workshop I took with Andrew Faust a few years ago. There is just something magical about how all vegetables change in the fermentation process.
Of course, lacto-fermentation shoots up the nutritional value of what is fermenting, especially the vitamin C levels. Natural probiotics and beneficial enzymes also flourish. This is yet another reason to consume such foods.
When I got back from Washington, I looked in the fridge and saw that I had some CSA carrots and radishes left over. I thought fermenting them would be a great way to preserve them. The carrots were tiny, so grating them would have been a pain (perhaps even literally, as I was using a box grater), so I decided to slice them thinly into rounds, just as I was slicing the radishes. Then I figured that onions and garlic would be a nice addition.
Finally, I wanted to make them spicy. I didn’t have any fresh peppers on hand but I did have a bunch of dried ones. I love smoky and tangy together, so I chose to use a few of my dried chipotles.
I also wanted to use a brine with a smaller percentage of salt. More salt means the food with ferment faster, but lately I’ve been dissatisfied with the saltiness of the end product. I’d been using this brine: 1 tbs of salt to 1 cup of water. I referred to Sandor Katz’s Wild Fermentation, and saw that he uses a weaker brine for some things: 3 tbs salt to 4 cups water. I decided to try it out, though I did halve it, as I wasn’t making a huge batch of vegetables.
I am very happy with the results of this ferment! It took a little longer to get to where I wanted, but I love the salt level, flavor-wise. But I love how it’s turned out – it’s not overly salty at all, it’s smoky, spicy, and tangy. Perfect!
Carrot Radish Chipotle Ferment
1 pound carrots, cleaned and thinly sliced (do not peel)
1 pound radishes, thinly sliced
1/4 white onion, sliced
4 cloves garlic, peeled and cut in half
3 chipotle peppers, softened in warm water
1.5 tbs sea salt
2 cups warm water
Combine carrots, radishes, onion, and garlic in a large bowl.
After the chipotles have softened a bit, slice into four pieces, stem to blossom end. Add to the vegetables.
Mix the sea salt and water until the salt dissolves. Add it to the vegetables.
Scoop vegetable mixture into washed, sterilized mason jars – either two pint jars or one quart jar. Top off with remaining liquid.
Tighten lid – but not too tight – and store in a warm, dark area for 3-5 days. Check after a few days and see if you like it. Leave a little longer if you don’t. Check each day, and when it is to your liking, store it in the refrigerator.
Makes 4 cups.
This post is participating in Real Food Wednesday, hosted by Kelly the Kitchen Kop.
This week’s share was a bit more modest than last, but still full of amazing fruits and vegetables. We got:
1 bunch beets
1 pound zucchini
1 head red leaf lettuce
1 pound string beans
1 bunch carrots
1 bulb fennel
1 cucumber
2.5 pounds red plums
2 pounds nectarines
The carrots came with the fronds, and I’m looking into ways to use them. They could be good!
I was considering lacto fermenting the fennel with carrots, but I’ve read that fennel can get bitter in the fermentation process, with lots of shrinkage after a few days. Carrot fennel slaw I think is in my future, instead.
The fruit continues to be amazing and I am loving eating the plums with raw yogurt for breakfast. Jenny from Nourished Kitchen recommend poaching yellow plums in honey-vanilla syrup, and I bet these red plums would also be great that way.
We’ll be eating salad with the lettuce as opposed to the no so successful lettuce soup I made last week.
Zucchini will be eaten with tomatoes from my garden!
