Sprout - kraut / Sauerkraut
After Christmas this year and last year Aber Food Surplus has had the pleasure of dealing with 100s of kg’s of sprouts!
At the ECO Food Sharing Hub we have been talking with the community about what we can do with sprouts, and lots of people have been sharing some wonderful sprout based recipes highlighting the versatility of vegetables! Not only is it lovely to hear all these wonderful recipes and share them on through the hub, the excitement of some people who have come back for more sprouts has really made us happy!
Embracing the surplus sprout reminds us of what its like to eat seasonally!
A few years ago, the team at Aber Food Surplus had the pleasure of learning how to make sauerkraut from the wonderful preserver Annie Levy, who runs a fascinating blog called ‘Kitchen Counter Culture’. The team are so happy to be able to share this skill on at times of surplus - and the sprouts made this opportunity ripe.
What about the Sauerkraut?
Sauerkraut is a form of lacto-fermentation that preserves food, meaning when we have a surplus of vegetables we can preserve them to make sure they don't get wasted, and they can be eaten at a later date! The sprouts from Christmas 2018 were made in to sauerkraut in January 2019, and one volunteer finally finished their kraut in October 2019 - so this method of preservation is a worthy skill to save food!
Lacto-fermentation can be done with almost any vegetable, and we have become quite fond of the sprout-kraut / sauer-sprout that can be made by fermenting sprouts (although it is a bit smellier than the traditional cabbage kraut)! So here is how we did it:
You will need: Hands, a knife, chopping board, mixing bowl, salt, jars, and muslin cloth.
Wash your hands, and steralise all your equipment.
Peel all the yellowing leaves, or black bits off your sprouts down to the fresh green underneath
Finely chop your sprouts
Pop your chopped sprouts in your mixing bowl, and add a big pinch of salt
Massage your sprouts, rub them, bash them, squeeze them, and keep going…this process can take a lot of energy, and maybe 10 - 15 mins. Feel free to take a break, and then keep going. We are massaging the sprouts until they start making their own brine. When you start getting bubbly liquid coming off the sprouts you are getting there!
Traditionally you can add juniper berries to flavour your kraut, or you can experiement with flavours like cumin, tumeric, carraway, garlic, and chilli or whatever comes to mind!
When the mixture is nice and wet, put it in your sterilised jar, and press all the sprout down below the brine - this creates an anaerobic environment for the fermentation to take place.
To keep the sprout below the brine add a weight to the top of the jar. In the picture below a clean jar full of water has been used. Leave the lid off the jar so there is air reaching the water, and put a muslin cloth over the top to keep out any flies. Then leave the kraut on your counter top (away from any other ferments to prevent cross contamination!!)
Check your kraut daily to make sure all the sprout is below the brine. After a few days you can start tasting your kraut. The kraut will be ready within 6-12 days, depending on how strong a flavour you like, the flavour will intensify the longer the kraut ferments.
When your kraut is at a flavour you like, enjoy!! Pop the lid on, and put it in your fridge - the fridge / cool temperature almost pauses the fermenting process to keep the kraut how you like it.
Use the kraut as a nice side, and then start experimenting with the lacto-fermentation process and different vegetables and flavours!!
Get in touch to share your ideas or give us feedback, we love talking about food!