Sauerruben! Self-Fermenting Pickled Turnips

When I got Sandor Katz's Wild Fermentation almost two years ago (Christ, in the midst of finishing the diss) I got inspired by the sauerruben recipe, which is a sauerkraut style self-fermentation of turnips. I followed the recipe, which called for too much salt for my taste, and shredding the turnips (5 lb or so). I didn't realize how much carbon dioxide they were going to put off in the first day, and as you see below, one of the jars got so over-pressurized it dented the lid out. And in the end, a couple of weeks later the stuff was too salty (3 Tbsp salt / 5lb turnips) and too stringy/hashy to enjoy. It looks beautiful, with that pink color being a dilution of the purple top of the turnip. But really not much fun to eat.

I revisited this recipe after getting a bunch of turnips a few weeks back during a mammoth pickling session, and decided to go with roughly 1/2" x 1 1/2" chunks of turnip, and bought an awesome little ceramic crock to brine them in. Ceramic crock is pretty hardcore. It does for me what Chewbacca does for Han Solo: It keeps it real; it doesn't promise anything it can't deliver; and if I'm being a dumbass it will let me know but still backs me up. It is literally and figuratively solid.

I had maybe 3 lb of turnips, and decided to use about half the salt since it's less necessary in colder weather. I think it was 2 tsp or 1 Tbsp of Morton's canning/pickling salt. I coated the chunks in this and then packed them in the crock, weighing them down with a clean plate and a clean growler full of water. Then I wrapped the top with clingwrap to keep crap and flies from getting into it. After 2 days the slat had drawn out enough water to make a brine that covered (and protected) the turnips. Then I just let it go, checking a couple of times along the way and stirring it up so everything got a good brine soak. I pulled them out tonight and let them continue fermenting in jars so I could use the crock for sauerkraut tomorrow. The big shot glass on the right has the remainder of the brine, turned a beautiful pale pink. This tastes delicious, and if I can save any of the brine, I would make a dirty vodka martini with this. Maybe strong, but definitely a Russian reverberation.

Sauerruben rocks.

Kefir, I Think

Wow, I've been out of it for a few weeks. When I left New Hampshire I got some cultures of kefir and kombucha from my friend Sarah to bring back to State College, and I started those up the following Sunday which was Feb 24. Nothing seemed to be happening with either until the following Friday and the kefir looked like it had separated out all of sudden in what Wild Fermentation describes as sour cream and whey ... like maybe it went a bit too long at room temperature:

 

(In the background is a batch of kombucha, which is an odder fermentation by a long shot.) I pulled the creamy stuff out and it was sour, so I made a tzatziki dip out of it with cucumber, lemon juice, dill, garlic, olive oil, coriander, cumin and black pepper. Super tangy, but good. I still have the whey (liquidy) part and some of the starter. Interesting ferment, since it doesn't demand close attention to temperature like yogurt does, but it does seem temperamental. It seems like nothing is happening and then all of sudden you go from milky drink to floating sour cream.

DIY and Fermentation

I'm not very inspired by doing Asian bean fermentations now, nor have I ever been. I'm not against them, it's just not what drives me. But this passage at the end of Sandor Ellix Katz's procedure for making tempeh encapsulates what I love about his book, Wild Fermentation (p. 66).

Maintaining a temperature around 85 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit (29 to 32 degrees Celsius) for twenty-four hours can be tricky. Making tempeh when the weather is hot is the easiest method. Other times, I generally use the oven of our propane stove with just the pilot light on, with a Mason jar ring propping the door open just enough so that it doesn't get too hot. I've also incubated larger quantities of tempeh in the greenhouse on a sunny day, then in a small room somewhat overheated by a wood stove at night. Be sure to maintain good air circulation around the incubating tempeh. Innovate, make it work.

The last bit has my added emphasis. Sandor's voice in this book is ... what? Encouraging, reassuring, redoubling? Yes. Compassionate? Yes. He's succinct and direct while acknowledging hundreds of angles of uncertainties faced by his (hers/its/whatever/not-whatever) readers. At the end Sandor is telling folks it's up to them to figure out the process that works for them, where they find themselves. But by telling folks to make it work, the message is that inevitably we can make it work. Not WE, really, each of us can make our efforts produce something that works for ourselves.

It shouldn't be such a revolutionary act to tell people that they have the capacity to consciously change and direct their lives, but in fact, here we are. And this is why I love this book, even if I'm not a fan (yet) of tempeh.