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An Afternoon of Fermented Foods

Last week, I went over to the my friend Denise’s home for a mid-afternoon snack and chat. Little did I know how awesome an afternoon it was going to be, full of fermented foods. We ate a number of kimchis, had some pancakes made with kimchi, and enjoyed a fermented soda. She did a great job making the fermented products, and got me all excited again about making ferments.

The first kimchi I tasted was a water kimchi. This is a lesser-known kimchi in the US (I’m really familiar with the cabbage kimchi), and is very light. She made it with primarily some kind of leafy green.

water kimchi

Next was a kimchi made from butternut squash. The squash was not cooked beforehand, but you’d never know it – the squash was soft but not without substance. It was a little sweet, a little savory. Really wonderful!

butternut kimchi

The final kimchi I tasted was the kind I’m used to – cabbage kimchi with ginger, garlic, hot peppers, etc, though not made with napa cabbage. It was very good. We used some of the juice in the mung bean pancakes.

cabbage kimchi

Then I tasted a bit of this corn salsa she made back in the late summer. Wowza, it was delicious! I am going to make this next year.

fermented corn salsa

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My First Coconut Flour Experience

For a while, I’ve been wanting to try coconut flour.

coconut flour

Coconut flour is made from dried, finely ground coconut meat.  It is high in fiber (one serving provides about 1/4 of the recommended amount of fiber each day), gluten and grain free, and low in soluble carbohydrates.  It smells faintly of coconut (not a bad thing in my opinion).

From what I’ve read, recipes using coconut flour require a lot of eggs.  This is because all that fiber absorbs a lot of liquid.  After further research, I learned that it is recommended that each half cup of coconut flour be paired with 6 eggs.  Eggs are so good for you – especially pastured eggs – that this is truly a bonus.

I discovered this ratio after I made my first foray into coconut flour use.  The recipe I used – one for pancakes – only used 4 eggs to a half cup of coconut flour, though it also used a cup of milk.  Still, I found that these pancakes were a little dry, and I could tell they were not made with grain.  They had great flavor, though, and didn’t taste much like coconut at all.  T even thought they were tasty.

coconut pancake batter

I found that I had to add butter to them post-frying to moisten them up; this never happens when I make pancakes with wheat or sprouted wheat flour.  I expect that if I upped the egg amount this would take care of that.  However, the batter would be much looser.  Perhaps then I’d have coconut flour crepes?  Intriguing… I of course added maple syrup because that’s the perfect pairing with pancakes.  That also helped with moisture levels.

cooked coconut flour pancakes

I also think incorporating bananas or berries would be a welcome addition and add to the feeling of moistness in the pancakes.

Since coconut flour is so fiber-rich, these pancakes were crazy filling.  I could only – actually, barely – eat two small pancakes. I think next time I’d make a half batch – I had a bunch left over after Sunday’s brunch.

So, although the resulting pancakes did not meet my expectations, I do plan to experiment with this recipe again, and consider other recipes that ask for coconut flour.  Cilantro chicken filled savory coconut flour crepes come to mind right away.  I also might try using coconut flour in brownies, too.  Looking forward to playing more with this new ingredient!