Kimchi And Fermented Vegetables How To And Why

I saw beautiful Napa cabbages at one of the stores today. I was so tempted to buy one but they had no Daikon radish which I like to put in the tradition kimchi and I won't have time to make it anyway this week, I already have sauerkraut making to squeeze in, and by next week the Napa will have gone bad. It's almost as bad as catching an avocado at just the right time! Hard and puckery one day, miss the optimum day and it's brown and mushy. I don't know how many avocados I've wasted.

 

My mom started a nukadoko last week! It is a bed of bran that you use to ferment things in. Once it really gets going it can pickle veggies in a few hours apparently! Has anyone here tried this fermenting method before? She will be able to give me some soon to start my own bed.

 

Interesting!

 

No I have not, so keep us posted as it does sound interesting.

 

Looked it up (wiki)...that is so way out there! These must be the pickling masters!
And they do whole veggies..and eggs! All in the same frickin' crock of fermenting mush, lol
The pickles are called "nukazuke"
I want to try a fish nukazuke. :crowngrin:




This one line kinda jumped out towrd the end of the article;

Wormy? LOL

 

Hubby worked with a guy that told a story about soldiers finding pots of kimchi buried in the ground. They were clay pots. This was in Korea. They said it was very hot an spicy.

 

I've never heard of it either. Let us know how it goes when you try it.

I made another jar of sauerkraut. I put some garlic in this one. I didn't have any leaves to put on top so I used one of the baby food jars. I hope it keeps the contents down sufficiently!

 

I have a cabbage that I need to get chopped and put to fermenting. That's my favorite so far.

 

Thats how I do it! Sans the airlock of course :-b

 

Expanse, I bought a butternut squash today! When I'm swearing away while peeling it, I'll be thinking of you. :-D

 

I did some swearing myself. Next time I'm going to cut it into a few large pieces before I start peeling. Squashes are slippery.

I finally made my squash kimchi.

I thawed the squash, cut up and salted my cabbage, mixed the cabbage and squash, added crushed hot pepper, and stuffed it into the jar.

I didn't add anything besides salt and crushed pepper, because that's all the recipe, that I had, called for. I'm going to wait to see what it tastes like before I add other spices.

I didn't have enough to fill a 2 quart jar, so I added carrots to the top, then a gladware cup to push it down, then added a little water so the carrots would be submerged.

Looks like there's a lot of liquid in mine. I smashed it down a lot as I added the ingredients though.

 

I need to make some more airlock lids. I just used a filter disk and a lid for my squash kimchi.

I also started two jars of cauliflower and carrots, some apple cider and mead(using yeast that's good to 20% ABV).

 

Next time you need to peel a squash like that, just slice off both ends with a large chefs knife, then slice it into 2 or 3 disks of equal width. Lay each disk flat and use the same chefs knife to slice the edge off all around the disk. It is very easy this way.

 

Now you tell us :b

 

That looks really good, Expanse! Let us know how the squash turns out.

I was contemplating apple cider recently. I thought it might be too much work and not sure how to go about it.

 

lol Go make more and let us know if it's easier! :-D

That's a good idea, Mattekat. I would have thought the disks would slip and slide over each other, but I guess not huh?

 

I remembered Mattekat’s post about hard cider the other day when I was walking past some organic apple cider at the grocery. I thought that I would just throw in some wine yeast, and add sugar as needed, until all the year has died. I don't get too technical with wine or beer anymore. I haven't made either for a long time, until now.

 

How is it looking?

 

If this first batch turns out good, I'll definitely make more, the way Mattekat described.

 

Just cut the edge off one disk at a time. It doesn't take very long.

And haha sorry, you'll know next time.