YJL

Before new year, I was thinking about fermentation, sauerkraut seems like a good entry point to have a peek at this mysterious world. It’s simple from the look of recipes, only requires two ingredients:

• cabbage and
• salt

I’ve eaten fermented food, mainly from Japanese or Korean cuisines, so I know how a fermented food could taste like. Never made by myself before, so reading about sauerkraut only needing two things really make me wonder if it’s too easy to be true.

Bowl of simple noodle soup with sauerkraut

Whenever speaking of the word “sauerkraut”, Germany is considered as the origin as it’s German meaning “sour cabbage”, but the Wikipedia says:

It is believed to have been introduced to Europe in its present form 1,000 years later by Genghis Khan after invading China. The Tartars took it in their saddlebags to Europe. There it took root mostly in Eastern European and Germanic cuisines, but also in other countries including France, where the name became choucroute. — Wikipedia

No matter if you want to trust it or go back for a millennium, it doesn’t really matter the true origin or how it’s called. The world has many different fermented vegetable dishes, such as Kimchi of Korea. Each region has its own staple fermented dishes. Comparing to them, sauerkraut is easier to make.

I started to read and watch videos. Not sure if I could really make even it’s simple, I decided to start small. After shredded less than one head of cabbage, sprinkled with salt, which I used Himalayan rock salt.

Generally, it’s about 2% of the weight of the fermented food. But some people simply salt by taste, you should taste salty but bearable. After adding salt, you can leave it overnight or go brute force by massage the ingredients. Less than a minute, the cabbage started to wield with lots of water. The end result of my batch had no additional salted water, the cabbage itself provided enough water.

Sauerkraut is made by anaerobic fermentation, and it’s important that the ingredients have no direct contact to the air to prevent mold from growing. I have heard that horseradish or quince can avoid that, or you just simply weight down properly.

Submerging about a couple of centimeters would do, but I put in a plastic water bag as the weight, I think it’s an easier way to do. The lid wouldn’t screw tight because of overhanging plastic bag, it’s a good thing since you want the gas to escape and not to explode inside the jar. You’d want to place the jar on a plate of in a bowl, because the liquid would leak out.

I checked on the second and the third day like most people said on line, but I wasn’t sure if it’s fermenting. They tasted salty, but sour flavor or smell wasn’t so prominent. However, I did know they were bubbling, because the liquid was coming out of jar. Since my jar had no air head space, the water had to flood over. The water should be the indication of fermentation, even I didn’t actually observe any bubbles in the jar.

However, on the sixth day, I could smell the sourness and it began to taste like so. Nonetheless, I didn’t think it’s ready, it’s still to mild, I’d like them to be with stronger flavor and smell. I had never seen real or authentic sauerkraut, so I don’t know what they should smell like let alone the taste. But that doesn’t matter much, as long as I like, then it’s the sauerkraut.

The fermentation process was going fairly slow, it had to be the temperature since it’s only around 15°C. I think the good temporary is ranged from 10°C to 25°C or 50°F to 75°F according to stuff I read. Usually, you should see a progress in between 3 and 10 days.

On the seventh day, one week later, I believe it’s fermenting. So I made a bowl of noodle soup with sauerkraut and slices of scallions, just for color. They didn’t taste really sour, but I’ve moved the jar into fridge. I think I would let them slowly develop the flavor.

I am already thinking about making second one, but I probably would get some juice from this one, hopefully the liquid would be thriving with good bacteria. Carrots, green onions, dill, well, sky is the limit.

Also thinking about napa cabbage, I’d love to make some Kimchi, but of course, omitting Saeujeot—fermented shrimp—from its ingredients, because I’m a vegan. I was actually thinking about making miso, but the skill and Koji are a bit out of my league at this moment, although I have read somewhere you could make Koji from banana and rice, the old school style, if you don’t want to buy already made.

One more thing about the sauerkraut I made, although I sliced the cabbage into thin slices, they don’t look like so in the end result, not sure if it’s because of the variety of cabbage or I broke them during the massage process, or simply this is how they are supposed to be like.

Side-curse: I didn’t know the noodles I used were egg noodles, they looked so white, didn’t even think about it. I did check on the package for the weight for portioning, and even it did smell as they cooked, it just didn’t occur to me they had eggs in. Worst part is they were egg yolk and white powders, not really fresh egg while they were made. 6 months ago, I also had an accident. I am really becoming more careless in terms of reading packaging