Nourished Kitchen» food preservation

Sour Pickles

Jenny — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 03:43:51 +0000

Sour pickles are a mainstay at our summer dinner table. Naturally fermented, sour pickles are rich in beneficial bacteria and food enzymes, offering a dairy-free source of probiotics. Vinegar pickles lack the beneficial bacteria and many of the heat-sensitive vitamins found in traditional, sour pickles. You see, real pickles are naturally fermented through lactic acid fermentation – a process that conveys many benefits by encouraging the proliferation of beneficial bacteria.

Just as unrefined sea salt is used to prepare a traditional sauerkraut, unrefined sea salt is likewise used to prepare traditional sour pickles. While many traditionally fermented vegetables require pounding vegetables long enough for them to release their juices which then combine with unrefined sea salt to create a brine, in preparing sour pickles, you prepare the brine separately and pour it over cucumbers and seasonings. This brine helps to keep pathogenic bacteria at bay while encouraging the growth of beneficial bacteria which metabolize the vegetable’s natural sugars and produce lactic and acetic acids as a by product. This is why sour pickles, traditionally prepared, salty without the addition of vinegar to the preparation.

I like to season them heavily with garlic and dill while alternating the more subtle flavors by using pickling spice or even dried hot peppers. The benefit of using garlic in your sour pickle recipe is that not only do you finish the week with true, delicious salty and sour pickles, but you also get to enjoy pickled garlic with all of its flavor coupled with thiamin as well as vitamins C, K and B6.

Sour Pickles Recipe

Equipment:

1 Gallon Vegetable Fermenter or Fermenting Crock (see sources) OR
2 ½-gallon Mason Jars with Lids and Smaller Plastic Lids
Quart-sized Mason Jar or Measuring Pitcher with 1-quart Capacity

Ingredients:

1 Gallon of Organic, Unwaxed Pickling Cucumbers
2 Big Bunches Organic Dill (Preferably Flowering Heads)
2 Large Bulbs of Organic Garlic
3-4 Tablespoons Pickling Spice (Allspice, Mustard Seeds, Cloves, Bay Leaf, Black Pepper etc.)
5-6 Tablespoons Unrefined Sea Salt
1 Horseradish Leaf, Stem Removed

Method:

The first step in making sour pickles is to thoroughly soak the pickling cucumbers in chilly water. This is a very necessary step unless you picked your cucumbers that day as it helps to perk them up a bit before the fermeting begans.
Next, you’ll want to makes sure all stems and flowery ends have been removed as either may contribute an off-flavor to the sour pickles. Make sure your pickling cucumbers are throughly scrubbed and clean.
Peel each bulb of garlic and use only the best and freshest cloves of garlic to season the sour pickles.
Add the pickling cucumbers and garlic, dill and pickling spice to the jar or vegetable fermenter in layers, I like to sprinkle a little salt between layers.
Add the horseradish leafe to the jar as well. I find that you needn’t tear it to ensure that the horseradish leaf is evenly distributed throughout the jar; indeed, it can be left more or lose whole. The leaf not only yields a subtle additional flavor to sour pickles, but it also helps them to remain crisp, not mushy, when the lactic acid fermentation is complete.
Prepare a brine of 2 ½ – 3 tablespoons of unrefined sea salt to 1 quart filtered, chlorine-free water and shake it to ensure the salt is fully disolved. Pour the brine over the pickling cucumbers, spices, garlic, dill and horseradish until all of the ingredients are submerged in salt water. It usually takes about 2 quarts of salt water to sufficiently cover the vegetables and spices.
Make sure that the vegetables are completely submerged beneath the salt water which is easy if you’re using a vegetable fermenter. If you’re using mason jars, simply place a smaller, plastic lid or other clean wait in the jar ontop of the vegetables until it weights them down sufficiently.
Allow your ingredients to ferment for at least a five days and more likely seven days and quite possibly ten days. (Fermentation is an inexact art.) Taste them to see if they’ve soured to your liking. Once they’re done, simply place them in the fridge and use wisely and judiciously.

NOTE: In my experience, sour pickles are more likely to go awry than other fermented foods so, remember, if it smells bad or looks bad, it probably is bad. Use your judgment.

Did you like this post? Please let me know by leaving a comment. Don't forget to find Nourished Kitchen on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. © Jenny for Nourished Kitchen, 2009. | Permalink |

Don’t Forget: December’s Pantry Challenge

Jenny — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 19:45:13 +0000

Don’t forget: Monday begins our Pantry Challenge for the month of December! There’s still time to sign up for the challenge and win one of two vintage cookbooks. So stock up your pantries, brush of your old tried-and-true meal plans and get ready for the pantry challenge.

Did you like this post? Please let me know by leaving a comment. Don't forget to find Nourished Kitchen on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. © Jenny for Nourished Kitchen, 2008. | Permalink |

A Stocked Pantry!

Jenny — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 17:02:39 +0000

In begging forgiveness for the unexplained, neglectful month-long hiatus, I have some pictures to show you:

Forgive the Poor Lighting: Our Stocked Pantry

So, while I’ve been away from the Nourished Kitchen (and so may well have lost all my beloved readers!), my husband and I were terribly busy. We wrapped up this years market and laid plans for next years market with an eye to get better and better each season. Additionally, we stocked our pantry, cupboards and freezer for winter.

Apricot Compote, Sour Cherries in Sucanat Syrup and Dried Apples

Living in a 750-s.f. condo in a ski area presents no small challenge to developing a well-stocked pantry. There’s no root cellaring for us, and we’ve barely any room for the furniture let alone space for a long mountain winter’s food rations. Yet, with a little ingenuity, we set aside some space for a pantry and even a freezer.

For this winter we have:

30 Butternut Squashes
50 lbs of Potatoes
1 Quart Cherry Tomatoes Preserved in Oil
20 lbs of Turnips Awaiting Fermentation
1 ½ Gallons of Lacto-fermented Beets
½ Gallon Jar of Dried Bing Cherries
10 Gallon Bags of Dried Apples
2 Gallon Bags of Dried Pears
1 Gallon Bag of Dried Watermelon
3 Gallon Bags Dried Heirloom Tomatoes
1 Gallon Frozen Roasted Heirloom Tomatoes
A String of 40 Dried Chilies
12 Quarts Canned Roman Stripe Tomatoes
5 Quarts Canned Carrots
14 Quarts Canned Ranier Cherries
10 Quarts Canned Potatoes
34 Quarts Canned Nectarines
10 Quarts Canned Wild Apricot Compote
7 Quarts Sour Cherries Canned in Sucanat Syrup
5 Gallon Bags Frozen Peaches
1 Gallon Bag Frozen Chinese Yard-long Beans
30 lbs Frozen Grass-finished Bison Steaks, Roasts, Ground and Sausages
10 lbs Frozen Grass-finished Elk Steaks, Roasts and Sausages
115 lbs Frozen Grass-finished Beef Steaks, Bones, Roasts and Ground
6 Frozen Pastured Chickens
5 lbs Miscellaneous Grass-finished Lamb

What else fills our pantry:

20 lbs Lentils
10 lbs Cannelini Beans
20 lbs Local Anasazi Beans
50 lbs Spelt Berries
25 lbs Basmati Rice
25 lbs Chickpeas
10 lbs Black Beans
25 lbs Real Salt
An assortment of rice, sorghum and other flours

Forthcoming:

Artichoke Hearts Preserved in Oil
Eggplant Preserved in Oil
Moroccan Preserved Lemons

What you don’t see:

5 Gallons of Dried Apricots we already ate because they were just so damn delicious.
2 Gallon Bags Dried Apples for the same reason as above
1 ½ Gallons Traditional Sauerkraut … uh … for the same reason as above
A Fridge Full of Fresh Produce that will keep us from eating the preserves
The 25 lbs Local Quinoa that should be arriving soon

Yummy Meat in our New-to-us Freezer

So you can see why I’ve neglected Nourished Kitchen a little bit. Next season, I hope to rely less on canning since it alters the nutritional content of foods for the worse and rely more heavily on traditional food preservation methods: fermentation of course, preserving in oil and brine, drying and others.

Did you like this post? Please let me know by leaving a comment. Don't forget to find Nourished Kitchen on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. © Jenny for Nourished Kitchen, 2008. | Permalink |