Sauerkraut

This Saturday sees me in the kitchen having a first try at making Sauerkraut. The success of my preserved beans and brussel sprouts last week has me excited to take it a little further this week and tackle one of the big boys of preserving Sauerkraut. As I mentioned last week the importance of the preserved foods as part of a balanced diet is important and as Sauerkraut and its Korean cousin kimchee become increasingly popular and cool they also increase in price. With that in mind there is clearly a need to get on the task of making them from scratch. Today I will start with Sauerkraut and maybe next week have a go at Kimchee. 

Step 1. Shred up a whole cabbage into fine strips. Basically you are making coleslaw. I used a knife but you could also use a mandolin or the shred blade on your food processor. I also added 4 carrots grated and 1 long green chilli for a spice hit.

Step 2. Put all the ingredients into a bucket or large bowl and add 45 grams of salt. You need to add between 2 and 3 percent salt to weight of ingredients. Now comes a little exercise. It is a bit like kneading bread but much quicker. Scrunch the cabbage mix in your hands and mix and scrunch and mix and scrunch until you get a good amount of water extracted. Once you have about a cup or so of liquid in the bottom of the bucket you are done. 

Step 3. Transfer the cabbage mix to jars and pour in the liquid which has accumulated in the bottom of the bucket. Push the cabbage down so that it is totally submerged. Cover with the outer leaves of the cabbage so that your Sauerkraut stays submerged. 

The minimum time to leave the sauerkraut is around 5 days but can be left for weeks longer as well. The other thing I should have mentioned earlier is that the reason I am able to preserve these foods without specialised equipment is that the temperature in Sydney at this time of year is in the ideal range between 15 to 25°C which makes the task so much simpler than if attempting this in the summer time. 

The only problem with preserving is the wait. Until next time, happy cooking!!!