Nine Heads of Cabbage

Remember all that cabbage we harvested last week?

Our first, fresh use of it was that night, in fish tacos. Jonas doesn't usually put lettuce on his tacos at all, but when we convinced him to try cabbage, he liked it. Maybe because it's crispier?

Still, there are only four of us, so we only used a little bit of cabbage on the tacos. The rest went into the sauerkraut crock:

Sauerkraut is pretty easy to make; it just takes time. All you have to do is grate all your cabbage and mix in some salt. We use the Ball Blue Book for our recipe, but there's also some good info on how to make it at Mother Earth News. 

All you need is cabbage and salt, because sauerkraut is made by fermenting it. The salt helps draw out the water, and you basically let it sit until it ferments. The lactic acid that comes from this process is a preservative, and also creates the tangy flavor. This is real sauerkraut, and it has a much more mellow and complex flavor than the stuff you get in a can (or worse, a bag) at the grocery store. I come from a long line of Pennsylvania Germans, so you can trust me on this.

The only other thing you need besides cabbage and salt is a weight to press out all the excess water. We used to have a block of wood that Kirk had cut to fit our crock, but we lost it when we moved. So this year we're using a brick (it's wrapped in plastic wrap to keep it all clean, and the cabbage is also covered with cheesecloth to keep debris out of the crock). This isn't ideal because it doesn't cover all of it, so we'll see if it does ok.

As you can see, there's not a whole lot in there--they were pretty small cabbages. We are keeping this by the heat register so the process goes more quickly:

In case you are wondering, we got our crock from Lehman's, which is a really great resource for old-school growing, cooking, and living. By old-school, I mean non-electric. Even if you have no intention of going Luddite or Amish, it's worth checking out their website to see all the cool stuff they have.

Every few days, you need to scrape off the scum and bloom that form on the top of the fermenting cabbage:

When you scrape this stuff off, you can smell that, yes, it is indeed turning into sauerkraut and not something disgusting (although I can see that if you aren't familiar with the process, this could be a tad off-putting). Think of all the other foods we enjoy that are in a controlled process of decay in the name of preservation: yogurt, sour cream, and miso soup, for example. You just have to keep it clean, keep an eye on it, and give it a taste when it looks ready to be sure it's the way you want it.

Sauerkraut takes about two to four weeks to finish, so I'm not sure ours will be ready in time for dinner on New Year's Day. As is tradition where I'm from, we might eat it up right then if it's done. There's not enough to be worth canning this year, so we'll probably just put any leftovers straight into the fridge. I'll post on the finished product when it's ready!