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Stores of Good Luck: Sauerkraut and the Birth of a Preservationist

kraut_newtop
November 30, 2011 By In condiments & pickles, diy, eat me, sides

The Saturday before Thanksgiving was our last CSA pickup, and since I was traveling for the holiday rather than cooking for an army of gathered family members, I wasn’t quite sure what kind of produce investment to make. It seemed regrettable to waste this last hurrah, but also a shame to let perfectly lovely vegetables rot in my crisper drawer while I was out of town. That’s where the cabbages come in.

A few weeks ago, I got a copy of Canning for a New Generation and got really excited about, well, canning. Since it was already November, I figured I’d pretty much missed the boat this round but could spend the winter months making plans for storing next year’s bounty. However, towards the back of the book was a recipe for sauerkraut that was more or less “chop this cabbage and shove it (into a food-safe container for three weeks while it ferments).” I think somehow I also found the labor description of squeezing and massaging the salt into the vegetable (characterized as a “difficult immigrant experience”) somehow personally compelling. Anyway, I didn’t have a fancy crock, but I did have my gallon wine bucket and the two beautiful heads of green cabbage I’d finally settled on as my CSA pick. If it wasn’t fate, it was at least a good use of resources.

So there I was chopping and massaging this massive pile of shredded vegetable (a couple of tablespoons of kosher salt per head). I found a kind of scrubbing motion–as if I had an imaginary wash board down in the bucket that I was running the cabbage along–especially effective. Though I put my back into it, I never did get the cabbage to release enough water to cover the mixture well, so I boiled and cooled an additional 4 cups of brine to top things off.

Now my bucket sits patiently in the dining room, and if all goes as hoped, I’ll stuff fresh kraut into glass jars, water bath them, and have “put up” my first pantry treat, all ready for luck in the new year.

UPDATE: Kraut is canned!

So, I tasted a bite of the sauerkraut on Friday, and I’m honestly surprised to be able to report that it’s really, really good! This project somehow had a lot more of the “science experiment” vibe to it to me than even the cheesemaking did, but it worked and now that I’ve stored it so neatly I can hardly wait for the consumption to begin. I think some pierogies must be made, STAT, to accompany the ethnic feast I’m plotting in my mind.

can_process

The canning piece of this process was simple, the biggest investment simply waiting for all that water to boil in the huge canning pot. Meanwhile, into my large stock pot, the sauerkraut went and I brought it up to a boil for ten minutes. (This kills off the good bacteria of the ferment, so in future I may opt for smaller batches for eating fresh.) Once the jars were washed and sterilized and the lids took a dip in the boiling bath as well, the kraut was stuffed into the jars, the lids added, and then it was back into the tub for 10 minutes processing. Afterward, they rested on a towel, setting off satisfying “pops” as they cooled and the lids sealed. One didn’t quite seem to seal (ahem) and will need to be eaten immediately. Oh, darn…

The Queen of Green: Fresh Cilantro Chutney

chutney_top
November 17, 2011 By In condiments & pickles, eat me

Even before I was addicted to that amazing spicy tomato jam, I had a thing for savory yet unconventional condiments. Many years ago when I lived in Jackson Heights, Queens, I purchased almost all of my groceries at the Indian shop on the corner. As a result, it was not unusual for me to cart home 10 lbs. bags of rice, bottles of imported shampoo, and parathas from the frozen food case. Of my many exotic discoveries, however, my favorite by far was a shockingly bright condiment: cilantro chutney. If you’re in the “cilantro tastes like soap” camp, this may not win you over, but for me it was love.

When I moved out of that apartment, I feared that this affair was doomed, but as it turns out it was a simple enough thing to make at home. Good thing, too, since once I have a jar within reach, I find myself slathering it on everything I eat. Your sandwiches will never be the same!

Fresh Cilantro Chutney
adapted from Manjula’s Kitchen

Fresh Cilantro Chutney: Process

1 large bunch cilantro, washed well (no need to remove stems unless they are particularly thick and woody)
3 green chilies, split and seeds removed unless you can stand the heat
2 tsps. minced ginger
3 T lemon juice
1 tsp. canola oil
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. whole cumin seeds
Pinch of asafetida

Place all ingredients except for the cilantro in the bowl of a food processor and blend for a minute or so, until peppers are well minced. Add the cilantro (in batches, if needed) and continue to process until all ingredients are evenly incorporated. Adjust seasoning as needed.

A Peck of Pickled Peppers

pickle_top
October 16, 2011 By In condiments & pickles, eat me

Okay, not a peck, just a jar. Still, when Brian stripped down our one and only jalapeño plant and laid out all those bright green peppers on the kitchen counter, I was a little stumped. I had flashbacks to when my dad would proudly arrive in the kitchen carrying four or five baseball bat-sized zucchinis that had been hiding in our backyard garden. My mother would take one look at him and his harvest and order them all back outside. She wanted nothing to do with any of it. When Brian said he was looking forward to seeing what I was going to do with so many jalapeños, I was tempted to follow her example.

These peppers had been on the hot side of their variety (at least when compared with the half-rotting ones I tend to find in grocery stores), which was lovely when the harvest was coming in only a few at a time. This end-of-the-season bumper crop, however, was a little harder to wrap my mind around. We were just on our way out of town, so I pushed them all into a bag and hid them in the crisper drawer–a hot problem for another day.

Back home after a week on the road, the peppers demanded my attention. Preservation seemed the name of the game at this point, but frozen peppers never seem to work out for me (their texture is ruined by the freezing process, and I tend to forget to use them in situations where that might not matter). Having just finished the last of six jars of pickled green beans, however, this seemed a method our family was capable of putting to good use.

In addition, this week’s new-to-my-kitchen vegetable is the daikon. One of my favorite Waverly farmers was selling off bunches of them for a buck, so it seemed I had little to lose on the investment. Raw salads and slaws being low on my list as we cruise into the cooler fall temperatures, I decided pickling these was a good storage plan as well.

Pickled Jalapeño Peppers
from The Purple Foodie

330 g sliced jalapeños (I was a little shy on this weight once I’d sorted out a few bad specimens, so I just sliced and filled a sterilized pint jar and called it enough snacking heat for the household)
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1 cup water
1 T peppercorns
2 bay leaves
3 cloves of garlic, lightly crushed
2 T kosher salt
1 T sugar

Wash and slice the jalapeños–carefully. Wear gloves and mind what you touch. I have had pepper-burned hands and do not recommend it (though if you do find yourself injured, pushing your fingers into some yogurt seems to help). Pack the pile of peppers (sorry, couldn’t help myself) into a sterilized jar or jars, as best suits your needs.

The Purple Foodie passes on a pickling tip in her recipe that she learned from Michael Ruhlman’s blog for determining how much liquid you’ll need in advance: once you pack the vegetables into the jar, cover with water. Pour it back off into a measuring cup. Discard half the water and replace the missing volume with your chosen vinegar for a perfectly measured 50/50 mix.

Once you have determined the amount of liquid you will need, add that and the remaining ingredients to a pan and simmer for 5 minutes. Pour this mixture back over the peppers, screw on the lids, and refrigerate for a few days (or as long as you can wait). This batch should keep a couple of months.

Pickled Daikon
variation on the Momofuku Vinegar Pickle base recipe

There are many cooks on the internet who are preparing a carrot/daikon pickle for banh mi sandwiches. That wasn’t really what I was after, so I decided to start with a basic rice wine pickle recipe and add my own spices.

1 bunch daikon, washed, peeled, and cut into thin sticks to fit your jar (I used a pint, and these proportions worked well.)
1 cup boiling water
1/2 cup rice wine vinegar
3 T sugar
1 T kosher salt
1 tsp. vindaloo seasoning or spices of your choice

Pack the prepared daikon sticks into a sterilized pint jar. Combine the remaining ingredients and pour this mixture over the daikon, screw on the lid, and let sit in the refrigerator for a few days before using.

Along Came a Spider (Curds and Whey Edition)

yogurtcheese_top
September 28, 2011 By In condiments & pickles, dairy, diy, eat me

Sometimes, a girl comes home from the market, decides what to do with her purchased produce and dairy, and discovers she doesn’t need a large quantity of yogurt, but rather a solid dollop of sour cream. No problem. Just grab a strainer (I have a semi-fancy one that sits in a container with a lid over top) and make yogurt cheese. You can accomplish the same straining with a few layers of cheese cloth over a bowl, but I’ve never attempted that method.

Okay, back to making the cheese.

Nothing irks me like coming home from the market and discovering I have almost the right ingredients, but not quite. Draining enough whey out of my homemade yogurt to make an acceptable sour cream or cream cheese substitute (or even just to get a nice Greek yogurt consistency when a batch comes out a little runny) offers that satisfying “Ha! Take that, life!” self-sufficiency that I so enjoy in the kitchen. Not to mention that it saves me from making an additional trip to the grocery.

So, when there are enough of those little glass jars of yogurt taking up shelf space, I pull out two while I’m still putting things away, pour the yogurt into the strainer, pop on the lid, and leave it to drain in the fridge–anywhere from a few hours to a day or two, depending on the consistency I’m going for and how soon it’s needed. The whey collects in the bottom container and you can just pour that off or conserve for some other use.

Some weeks it seems that my commitment to making my own yogurt is much stronger than my desire to actually eat it, but a fresh dish of yogurt cheese usually turns that around. This week I left a batch for a full 48 hours (okay, yes, I forgot all about it) and had a nice, thick base to work with. I added a pinch of salt, a chopped scallion, and a good dose of dill, and stirred it up into a spread that makes for a perfect savory toast topping. What would you add?

I think our porch spider got a whiff of my curds and whey…

Evening, with Eggplant

egg_top
September 26, 2011 By In condiments & pickles, csa & vegetables, eat me

Or why I will never make baba ghanoush the old way again. Let me explain.

Inspired by last week’s post-market triumph over the eggplant, I picked up another one this Saturday (along with a pile of vegetables we will figure out what to do with as the week progresses–stay tuned!). As regular readers know, last week was the episode in which I discovered that the key to delicious eggplant was burning it to a crisp under the broiler for almost an hour (I can’t even imagine how much better this gets if you have a gas range and can actually light it up over a flame). Thanks, Yotam Ottolenghi! I owe you one. And it seems I am not alone.

This week, I turned again to the source of past glories, seeking new triumphs: Ottolenghi’s Plenty. I know! An actual paper cookbook! Offline cooking is a little odd for me, seeing as I am traditionally leashed to Epicurious and fellow bloggers for inspiration, but it’s working so I’m stirring with the flow. I promise to stop quoting Ottolenghi soon, but meanwhile I can’t seem to help myself. The food is vegetarian (a major point in this kitchen!), unfussy yet interesting and, most importantly, delicious. Real cookbooks: previously only collecting dust, now equally splattered with cooking oil. Somehow, this feels like progress.

So, back to the baba. “Burnt eggplant with tahini” is not much more than that, but somehow the proportions of the makings, not to mention the chance to get that bottle of pomegranate molasses out of the fridge and back into action, made this scrape-together-and-stir dish extra fetching. Look out, next cocktail party! Here we come.

Burnt Eggplant with Tahini

Adapted from Plenty by Yotam Ottlenghi

1 large eggplant
1/3 cup tahini
*1T to 1/4 cup water
1 T pomegranate molasses
2 T lemon juice
2 garlic cloves, crushed and mashed with a little salt
3 T chopped parsley
salt and pepper, to taste
**handful of pomegranate seeds
olive oil to finish

Broil eggplant for 45 minutes to 1 hour (depending on size), turning half way through, until flesh is well charred. Cut open and removed flesh into a sieve to drain.*

In a wide bowl, mix eggplant with tahini, water, pomegranate molasses, lemon juice, garlic, parsley, salt, and pepper. Mash and stir (a dinner fork worked will for me), adding additional pomegranate molasses, lemon juice, and/or garlic as needed to suit your tastes (I got in at least one additional glug of molasses** before all was said and done).

If you want to do it up fancy, you can spread the dip into a dish and top with a drizzle of olive oil, a sprinkle of pomegranate seeds, and a few parsley leaves. If it’s for personal use, just exercise restraint and try not to eat the entire bowl with your mixing spoon.

*There’s some business about draining the eggplant flesh after roasting, but then you add in a 1/4 cup water afterwards. While there may be good reason for this in/out process, I simply drained briefly and then only added a splash of water. Any more and the texture risked unpleasantness, so exercise caution.

**If this dish was for a cocktail party, I would have sprung for the fresh pomegranate seeds to sprinkle over the top, but as it was just me and my crackers, I simply added an extra splash of the molasses. A less photogenic dish, admittedly, but it won’t be around long enough for anyone to complain about it.

Things in Jars

tom_top
September 11, 2011 By In condiments & pickles, csa & vegetables, eat me

Maybe it’s the crisping of the morning air telling me the end of the harvest is creeping up on us, but I couldn’t resist an urge to stuff things into glass jars this weekend. I made up a batch of yogurt with my market milk and, in response to family demand, did up a final round of my usual pickled green beans, plus a wasabi (!) version. Now every time I open the fridge, I’m tempted to open a jar and taste one for “readiness”.

This week the market also boasted mounds of apples, $10 a basket full, though since I’m not generally a sweets person, fruit preservation is not high on my list of priorities. However, I have had a craving for tomato jam ever since I tried it out at Woodberry Kitchen a few weeks ago. This unstrained version which I found in the NYTimes via the Wednesday Chef seemed like it would suit perfectly. Aside from some occasional stirring during its 90-minute cook time, it took pretty much no effort until I got a little sloppy pouring the hot liquid from the very hot pan into the small containers. Lesson learned.


Product review: It’s so amazingly spicy (thank you, garden jalapeno!) and sweet and tomato-y, this is a condiment that’s bound to go fast. Used as a pizza topping last night and a scrambled egg dresser-upper this a.m., I have already seriously dented the jar.

I may have to rethink sharing.

Sweet and Spicy Tomato Jam

From the New York Times

1.5 lbs ripe Roma tomatoes, cored and coarsely chopped
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 tablespoon grated or minced ginger
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon salt
1 jalapeno or other peppers, stemmed, seeded and minced, or red pepper flakes or cayenne to taste.

Assembly could not be simpler. Place all ingredients in a pot, stir, and bring to a boil. Don’t worry that there’s not much liquid–that will self-correct quickly as soon as the tomatoes start cooking. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring on occasion and breaking up tomato chunks with the back of your spoon, for about 90 minutes (adjust timing as consistency dictates–you’re going for a thick jam). Cool and pour into containers for storage. Makes about 1 pint.