Fermented Carrots

The beauty of fermentation!

I'll post a kimchi-inspired recipe on here soon with more details on the fermentation process, but here are the basics.

You'll make a salt-water brine for the vegetables to ferment in. A good measure is a tablespoon of salt per cup of filtered water. Stir that up so the salt dissolves.

Grate many many carrots, and put them in your fermentation crock. I'll also do a whole post on fermentation containers, because that -- for me -- was the most difficult part of fermentation! The rest is easy. I have a great German-style fermentation crock given to me as a gift from Sofia, with weights that fit inside. The most important thing is that your find a way to weight down the vegetables so they stay under the salt water brine. As long as they stay anaerobic, and do not touch oxygen at the surface, they'll stay delicious and rot free!

So you'll throw your carrots in there, with tons of grated ginger (and I got tired of grating so I just chopped too), and then you'll pour the salt water brine over it. Push the veggies down so they go under the water, and put your weights over it. Those could be another jar, full of water, a plate with a glass jug on top to keep it down, or a plastic zip lock full of water. There are many ways to set up your weight system. I have these.

Then you'll wait about a week. Today we ate some that were exactly a week old as a salad, which was delicious! I put some in a jar to keep in the fridge, and left the rest in the crock to keep fermenting. As Sandor Ellix Katz says in Wild Fermentation, it's nice to enjoy the changing flavors of the vegetables as they continue to ferment.

When they're fermented to your taste, pack a jar (add some juice from the crock to keep it submerged) and stick it in the fridge! It will continue to ferment, but at a much slower pace. Add it to your salads and dishes, and experiment with other vegetables in the crock the next time around!

SL