Pickle report
Brussels sprouts update:
I went in today and stirred it around. Tasted one and it was too salty to eat. Lesson learned: when you salt a vegetable and it doesn't give much brine, the saltiness of the brine you add needs to take into account the salt you've already added to the vegetable. Today I added 6 cups of water to dilute the brine. Will try it again in a few days.
Also, it makes sense that in cold weather you'd add less salt because the fermentation process is slower when it's cold (salt also slows down fermentation). Our kitchen is frrrrreeeeezing, so I think I'll add less salt in general to what else we pickle this winter.
A few new things:
Plain pickled lemons
Lemons, meyer lemons, and salt.
Mash down until the juice covers the lemons.
Here we're using a random small bottle of something to hold the lemons beneath the juice/brine. Salt wasn't measured exactly, I just sliced the lemons in quarters, but still together at one end, then packed the inside with kosher salt. The brine is really salty -- there's still some undissolved at the bottom, despite having shaken it quite a bit. These should go for a few weeks before they're soft enough to use. Then we'll refrigerate and use them in cooking.
Holly's Sweet/Sour Pickled Cauliflower
Cauliflower
Curry power
Black pepper
Mustard seeds
Cumin
Fennel seeds
Allspice
Cloves
Bay leaves
Fresh ginger
Molasses
Red pepper flakes
Water
Kosher salt (~1 Tbsp per cup of water)
Can't wait to try this one!
Cucumbers
Same recipe as last batch, but this time using actual "pickling cucumbers" and less salt.
I went in today and stirred it around. Tasted one and it was too salty to eat. Lesson learned: when you salt a vegetable and it doesn't give much brine, the saltiness of the brine you add needs to take into account the salt you've already added to the vegetable. Today I added 6 cups of water to dilute the brine. Will try it again in a few days.
Also, it makes sense that in cold weather you'd add less salt because the fermentation process is slower when it's cold (salt also slows down fermentation). Our kitchen is frrrrreeeeezing, so I think I'll add less salt in general to what else we pickle this winter.
A few new things:
Plain pickled lemons
Lemons, meyer lemons, and salt.
Mash down until the juice covers the lemons.
Here we're using a random small bottle of something to hold the lemons beneath the juice/brine. Salt wasn't measured exactly, I just sliced the lemons in quarters, but still together at one end, then packed the inside with kosher salt. The brine is really salty -- there's still some undissolved at the bottom, despite having shaken it quite a bit. These should go for a few weeks before they're soft enough to use. Then we'll refrigerate and use them in cooking.
Holly's Sweet/Sour Pickled Cauliflower
Cauliflower
Curry power
Black pepper
Mustard seeds
Cumin
Fennel seeds
Allspice
Cloves
Bay leaves
Fresh ginger
Molasses
Red pepper flakes
Water
Kosher salt (~1 Tbsp per cup of water)
Can't wait to try this one!
Cucumbers
Same recipe as last batch, but this time using actual "pickling cucumbers" and less salt.