tjr wrote:2 mini batches of sauerkraut I made today:

Nice! I loves me some kraut -- and I'm out -- but I think I'm going to wait until the cooler weather arrives to make more.

HonestMan wrote:Yum, mouth watering....

Thanks -- the cherry bombs turned out really nicely. Speaking of which . . .

I came home from work to complete another ferment with five more pounds of cherry bombs from Nichols. This time, a sambal-style hot sauce . . .


Cherry Bombs & Tsunehisa Nami AUS10 Gyuto, 210mm
Quartered and partially seeded. In removing most of the ribs, I probably removed about 90% of the seeds. Next, I added 1% pickling salt by weight and let them drain for ~24 hours. After all was said and done, 5 pounds of cherry bombs netted out at about 3.5 pounds. Once drained, a quick buzz in the food processor, after which it was time to assemble for the final ferment . . .


Mise En Place
Gin (just a splash), 2% granulated sugar, 1.5% pickling salt, quartered/salted/drained cherry bombs, 1% microplaned ginger and 3% microplaned garlic.


Fermenting Vessel
After the pic, I filled the moat with water and moved the vessel to a spot that doesn't get any direct sunlight during the day. No idea how long it'll take but I'll keep an eye on it and expect that within a week, it'll be ready for jarring up.

=R=

The carrot&cabbage slaw turned out interesting: earthy carrot funkiness that tempered the cabbage spiciness. Good on a brat, will try cooked with some meat.

Another project: the Aristocrat Pickles from Chelsea O'Leary's The Wiley Canning Company Cookbook. Flavored with ginger, cinnamon, cloves and celery seed, these sweet pickles are fairly good but not great. To me, they seem to want a bit of savory spice: mustard seed, coriander, peppercorns? Those who like very sweet pickles might like them more than I did.

tjr wrote: . . . Those who like very sweet pickles might like them more than I did.

That's definitely not me. Even when I make bread & butters, I use a decidedly unsweet recipe.

Today, I finished a pending pickling project after work . . .


Cherry Bomb Sambal - 2024 Edition
This was the batch I started way back on August 25. I'd been keeping an eye on it (and tasting it regularly), and it was probably ready a few days ago but leaving it in the vessel didn't seem to be hurting it at all. Finally got it into jars today. In the end, 5 pounds of peppers, trimmed and mostly seeded, yielded about 7 half-pint jars. I plan on keeping one and giving the rest away.

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:Cherry Bomb Sambal - 2024 Edition
This was the batch I started way back on August 25. I'd been keeping an eye on it (and tasting it regularly), and it was probably ready a few days ago but leaving it in the vessel didn't seem to be hurting it at all. Finally got it into jars today. In the end, 5 pounds of peppers, trimmed and mostly seeded, yielded about 7 half-pint jars. I plan on keeping one and giving the rest away.

Kudos on a project that hopefully comes out as hoped. The store bought sambal (Huy Fong) is good enough, but smoothing out the texture to something akin to HD Cuisine's version is the real challenge. I think it's really meant to hold together more firmly like a jelly than the looser chili sauce that Huy Fong provides.

bweiny wrote:

ronnie_suburban wrote:Cherry Bomb Sambal - 2024 Edition
This was the batch I started way back on August 25. I'd been keeping an eye on it (and tasting it regularly), and it was probably ready a few days ago but leaving it in the vessel didn't seem to be hurting it at all. Finally got it into jars today. In the end, 5 pounds of peppers, trimmed and mostly seeded, yielded about 7 half-pint jars. I plan on keeping one and giving the rest away.

Kudos on a project that hopefully comes out as hoped. The store bought sambal (Huy Fong) is good enough, but smoothing out the texture to something akin to HD Cuisine's version is the real challenge. I think it's really meant to hold together more firmly like a jelly than the looser chili sauce that Huy Fong provides.

Thanks. It came out well. Other than cooking it down or adding something pectic-containing, I'm not sure how one could effectively adjust the viscosity, at least not with the peppers I used. The only places in my process to do that would be the initial salting, which, I suppose, could be extended to reduce the retained moisture (and thereby increase thickness), or tweaking the grind in the food processor. Mine does resemble HF Sambal Oelek in texture, which is exactly what I was shooting for, so I'm happy with it. The flavor is great but not as close to the HFSO as it is texture-wise.

Today, another fermentation started. With the first frost having come and gone, it's time for my annual sauerkraut production. I asked Tracey at 3SG to send me 10+ pounds of cabbages and she ended up sending me 18+ pounds, in the form of these 5 beautiful coneheads . . .


Conehead Cabbage & Hatsukokoro AS Damascus Gyuto, 210mm

The Hatsukokoro's thick, virtually-inflexible blade was ideal for quartering and coring these. However, that's as far as I went with the knife. For the rest of the 'journey,' I used the food processor.

When all was said and done, 18 pounds of cabbage netted out at just under 13 pounds (5870g). From there, into a pail with 2% salt by weight . . .


Shredded, Salted Cabbage
That's 5-gallon pail, nearly full but this will lose a lot of its volume along the way. I'll be closely monitoring it over the next 24-36 hours, continually mashing it down with a wooden rod, until the rendered liquid covers the cabbage (fwiw, I used Diamond Crystal here over pickling salt because I thought its larger crystals would help abrade the cabbage more effectively). Once the shredded cabbage is completely covered by liquid, it'll go into a proper fermentation crock until it's fermented to our liking. I'm guessing that'll be a 10-14 days. More to come . . .

=R=

Kraut and carrot kraut:
39¢ cabbage from Lewis, probably local, at least midwest. I fermented about 2 weeks. By the end it was pH 3.75 for the all-cabbage, 3.85 for the carrot mix. Still very crunchy, almost like the old Krispy Kraut. I got a little carried away with the quantity...

tjr wrote:Kraut and carrot kraut:
39¢ cabbage from Lewis, probably local, at least midwest. I fermented about 2 weeks. By the end it was pH 3.75 for the all-cabbage, 3.85 for the carrot mix. Still very crunchy, almost like the old Krispy Kraut. I got a little carried away with the quantity...

Nice looking stash there! As for quantity, you can never have too much, as long as you can eat it all while it's still crunchy.

=R=

'Celebrating' the arrival of flowering dill by kicking off the pickling season . . .


Mise En Place & Masakage AS Koishi Gyuto, 210mm
Nothing homegrown here but a lot of local. Cukes and flowering dill from Nichols Farm and garlic from 3SG. From here, it all went into the pickling crock -- under weights -- with a 4% salt brine (+0.04% calcium chloride to help preserve crunchiness). I'll check them in a few days and they may not be done by then but I don't expect them to take more than a week.

=R=

Restocking my supply of bread & butters . . .


Fixins' & Harukaze Blue #2 Mune Damascus Gyuto 210mm
5 pounds of pickling cucumbers from 3SG, ~1/2 pound of red jalapenos and pickling salt. This is a riff on Linda Ziedrich's "Bread-and-Butters My Way" recipe from Joy Of Pickling. They're less sweet than typical bread & butters. Let this sit for a couple of hours, then drained the excess liquid. From there, they went into jars with an apple cider vinegar-based brine (+ sugar, celery seed, mustard seed, turmeric) . . .


Jarred Up
I'm not going to hot water-process these. They're in the fridge now and I expect they'll be ready in about a week.

=R=

My annual batch of lacto-fermented cherry bomb pepper sambal . . .


Cherry Bomb Peppers
~13 pounds. Washed but not culled or trimmed yet. These were home-delivered by Nichols Farm.

From here, I culled, stemmed, trimmed and quartered them. I wanted to preserve the heat level on the final product but cut back on any potential bitterness, so I removed the seeds and pith from about half of them. After that, it was down to about 10 pounds. I hit them with 2% pickling salt and let them lose their liquid for about 24 hours. After that, I drained them and it was down to about 6.5 pounds. Once drained, I ran them through the food processor, giving them a coarse chop. From there, I prepped the rest of the ingredients for the ferment . . .


Mise En Place
Rice vinegar (just a splash), microplaned garlic (3%) & ginger (1%), processed cherry bombs, pickling salt (another 1% now), granulated sugar (2%) and a splash of gin. Mixed all this together and then it went into the fermentation vessel . . .


Fermentation Vessel
This 5-quart vessel was ~80% full. I didn't leave it outside but I did need to take it out there to get a decent shot of it. You can see the water is already in the moat/airlock. From here, back inside to ferment. This was very active almost immediately and I stirred it up every now and then to keep it homogenized. This morning, Day 7 of the ferment, it looked and tasted ready, so it was time to jar it off . . .


Jarred Up
Ended up with 11 4-ounce jelly jars and 2 half-pints. To help maintain their bright color and flavor, I'm just refrigerating these and will not hot water-process them. I expect that by the end of the week, most of these jars will have gone to good homes, with the 2 larger jars going to some friends who finished off their 2024 jars very quickly.

=R=