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Sauerkraut

Sauerkraut is a traditional fermented food, full of gut supporting beneficial bacteria. If you buy it, look for “raw” sauerkraut, as the pasteurised version that’s out of the fridge will no longer have these live bacteria. For me though, this is the cheapest option where I can guarantee the quality of my ingredients, and it blends in some “slow living” benefits too. Honestly, it doesn’t take long at all, and once you have done it once, you’ll easily manage to fit it into your routine!



Ingredients


• 1 cabbage (approx. 500g) I love red cabbage for the colour, but any firm cabbage is great

• 10g salt (I use celtic sea salt)


This is the ratio – 20g salt to 1kg cabbage. If your cabbage is heavier than 500g, you can calculate up with this ratio - just be sure to use 10g of salt for every 500g cabbage (a little extra salt is not an issue for safety, only for flavour, but too little salt and the not-so-beneficial bacteria may be able to thrive instead – the opposite of what we want!)


This is the most basic of recipes. From here you can start to experiment with other flavours, adding fennel seeds for example, or substituting some cabbage for grated carrot or other vegetables. Just remember to add the weight of the other vegetables to your cabbage weight for the salt ratio.


Method:


1. Opt for as fresh a cabbage as possible, and discard the limp outer leaves and any large tough stalk pieces.

2. Shred the cabbage as finely as you can by hand. This takes a little time and care, but the end result will be nicer if you can make the slices relatively fine.

3. Put the cabbage in a large bowl, pour over the salt, and “massage” for approx. 10 minutes.

4. To start with you won’t notice any liquid, but this will gradually appear, and once there is a reasonable amount of liquid, you’re ready to put it in your jar for the next stage.

5. Transfer the mixture to a clean glass jar and pack it down. The liquid should cover it completely with no cabbage poking out.

6. You can get fancy jar systems to keep the cabbage under the liquid, but I tend to do this: place a smaller clean jar on top, weighting it with water. This stops the cabbage floating up over the waterline.

7. Cover with a muslin or tea towel secured with an elastic band and leave in a cool spot away from direct sunlight, for one to two weeks.

8. Once the sauerkraut is ready, transfer it to the fridge with a lid on the jar now to stop further fermentation. Don’t worry too much about the timings – as long as there is no mould your sauerkraut is good! You will learn yourself what you prefer flavour wise with longer or shorter ferments.


Serve on the side of a meal or as a snack. It goes well with sausages (it is a German dish after all!) and other meats, as well as cheeses. Start with just a little as it can cause a reaction if your gut bacteria are a little imbalanced, and build up slowly day by day from 1 tsp to a whole serving.


Catherine x



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