I’m having a mostly lovely week. The sun in shining. I was teaching at Borough Kitchen in Hampstead on Monday, a small but interested group. And had a fantastic time on Tuesday with a couple in Crouch End who’d been given a voucher for a private lesson as a present.
I really love teaching people the practicalities and science of creating their own lacto-fermented pickles. I like teaching any aspect of cooking but the people who come to the pickling classes are so engaged and enthusiastic that it’s a particular joy. (You can see what other classes I’ve got coming up on the Events page of my website or buy your own voucher for a friend or for yourself.)
I’m also super pleased to say that I’ll be returning to the Garden Museum in Vauxhall as part of their Cooking Masterclass series. The name is sort of a misnomer here as there won’t be any actual cooking but we will make four seasonal ferments that attendees will take home and nurture to full deliciousness: a probiotic slaw, traditional kimchi, classic deli-style pickled cucumbers and fermented tomatoes.
It’s on Sunday August 20th, 1.30-4.40pm. You can get tickets here. The kitchen at the Garden Museum looks out over the central courtyard (beautifully planted around the tomb of the original celebrity gardeners the Tradescants) and is a lovely place to spend a few hours. The last class I taught there was great fun and sold out pretty quick (apparently generating the longest waiting list they’ve ever had!) so get in there quick if you fancy joining me. I’d love to have you there.
In related news, I’m looking for somewhere to base myself and teach small group workshops that isn’t my home kitchen. If you have leads on any suitable places in N4 or surrounding postcodes, do please let me know. It doesn’t have to be a full kitchen as I’ll just be fermenting there (although up for a kitchen if you know of one!) but I need running water and room for fridges, storage and about 6 people to stand round a work surface/table. Plus not crazy expensive…
I had a look at a studio in Blue House Yard in Wood Green which I loved. There’s an application process to go through though so it’s by no means guaranteed I’ll get it. If you’re aware of any other possible spaces drop me a line. Thank you!
Aaaanyway. Let’s get to the real point. A couple of weeks ago we were talking about sauerkraut. It’s a great entry point to lacto-fermentation as it’s so easy but also so versatile. Kraut may translate literally as “cabbage” but the word’s usage has evolved so if we’re talking about a kraut there may well be no brassicas involved at all.
At the end of the sauerkraut recipe I gave you, I included a few of my favourite variations. Red kraut, spicy curtido etc. I think what’s so exciting about this kind of ferment is that you can use almost anything: whatever is bursting forth from your garden, looking good/cheap at the shops or just wilting away in the veg rack, begging to be used before it’s too late.
The method is very simple and goes as follows:
Take your chosen veg and grate or shred it, add any flavourings you like and weigh.
Add (approximately) 2.5% of this weight in salt and leave for about 30 minutes for some brine to be released.
Shove everything into a clean jar, weigh it down so all veg is submerged in brine, close the jar.
Wait, tasting regularly, until it is as sour/funky as you like (anywhere from a few days to a few weeks) then move to the fridge.
The vegetable aisle is your oyster and a world of delicious pickles awaits. Once you’ve made a few simple simple krauts and discovered how easy it is, there’s a lot of fun to be had combining flavours for more complexity.
A few of my current favourite things to add are:
Garlic - a powerful addition, not just for flavour but it’s bringing good microbial game too and a few small cloves do a lot of heavy lifting.
Grated fresh horseradish - fermentation tames the fire but adds depth of flavour.
Seeds - great for texture, plus they add a bit of protein.
Celery - does the same in a ferment as it does in a mirepoix or stock, bringing a savoury note to proceedings.
Fresh herbs, particularly tarragon and dill - any herb will bring different layers of flavour. Wild garlic is out at the moment so worth adding if you manage to forage some.
However, much though I like to say: “go forth and do your own thing”, I know that openendedness can lead to decision paralysis (I can never decide what to read these days, and you should see me trying to buy toothpaste, frozen in fear before the tyranny of choice). Sometimes you want an actual recipe and I can get on board with that.
In fact I have two for you. I eat a carrot-based kraut several days a week. Usually atop some hummus on toast or with some chickpeas or grains mixed through. Maybe some extra veggies on the side. It’s a good, quick WFH lunch. (If you have pickles in your fridge salads lunches come together very easily).
Recipe 1: Carrot & Celeriac Kraut with Nigella Seeds
You’ll need a large, clean jar or fermenting crock and something to use as a pickle weight. This makes roughly a 750ml jar but feel free to scale up or down.
Ingredients
500g carrots (approx)
400g celeriac (approx)
3 garlic cloves, grated/minced/finely chopped
1 inch ginger, peeled and finely chopped
20g nigella seeds
sea salt
Method
Peel and grate the carrot and celeriac (I used the grater attachment of the Magimix as I prize my time and knuckles too highly to do that amount of veg on a box grater).
Put a large bowl on a weighing scale and add the veg, garlic, ginger and nigella seeds. Note the weight and calculate 2.5% of it. You can do this by dividing by 100 and multiplying by 2.5 or else just multiply by 0.025. Add this amount of sea salt and toss to combine evenly.
Leave for 30 minutes or so. The salt with draw moisture from the vegetables.
Put everything in a jar, packing it tightly, and add any brine left in the bowl. There should be enough brine so that when you push down firmly on the veg, brine rises up around it and covers it. Use a glass or ceramic pickle weight or a plastic bag filled with water to keep it weighed down.
Close the jar and put it somewhere at room temperature but out of direct sunlight. Every few days open it up to let out any gas that has collected and to taste a little kraut. When the kraut has reached your preferred degree of tartness, move it to the fridge. This will probably take between one and three weeks. Enjoy on hummus, alongside a curry or anywhere else you fancy.
Recipe 2: Seeded Carrot & Fennel Kraut with Herbs
Ingredients
700g carrots (approx)
300g fennel (approx 2 bulbs)
3 garlic cloves, grated/minced/finely chopped
small bunch tarragon
small bunch dill
100g mixed seeds (I used a mixture of pumpkin, sunflower, poppy and toasted sesame
sea salt
Method
Peel and grate the carrot (as above I used the Magimix. I slightly prefer the texture of carrot that’s been matchsticked with a knife or julienne peeler but I am usually too lazy to do either of these things).
Halve the fennel, remove the core and slice very thinly (I used a mandoline, one of my favourite bits of kitchen kit and not a terrible threat to your fingers if you’re careful and/or use a finger guard…). Keep the frondy tops of the fennel as you can chop them finely and add them with the herbs.
Put a large bowl on a weighing scale and add the carrot and fennel. Finely chop the herbs and any fennel fronds. Add them along with the garlic and seeds. Note the weight and calculate 2.5% of it. Add this amount of sea salt and toss to combine evenly.
Leave for 30 minutes or so. The salt with draw moisture from the vegetables.
Transfer to your clean jar and add any brine left in the bowl. Use a glass or ceramic pickle weight or a plastic bag filled with water to weigh everything down.
Close the jar and put it somewhere at room temperature but out of direct sunlight. Every few days open it up to let out any gas that has collected and to taste a little kraut. When the kraut has reached your preferred degree of tartness, move to the fridge. This will probably take between five days and two weeks.
Notes
Any stalky bits of fennel you can’t be bothered to slice, save for stock. I have a “stock box” (a 2l plastic tub) in my freezer and everything goes in there: clean veg scraps and peelings, herb stalks, parmesan rinds, bones etc. When it’s full I make stock. It’s a pleasing way to cut down on kitchen waste.
If you’re using a bunch of carrots with nice green tops then you can wash and chop those finely and add them too. They bring a nice, grassy freshness. BBC
Cultural Fun
I’m a big fan of a local (to me) artist called Lisa Price. She used to have a studio on Quernmore Road, just across the railway from me. I would walk past and admire the meticulous dots and dashes that made up her pictures. She left the space but last year we met by chance on a pottery course and the coincidence prompted me to finally buy one of her paintings.
This little grey number which I love. She’s currently having a studio sale with some real bargains. I got this work on paper for just £30. Lisa makes her own paint by grinding stones I find her pictures really rhythmic and meditative. They have such movement to them but are very soothing at the same time.
We also went to see the After Impressionism: Inventing Modern Art exhibition at the National Gallery. As the Time Out review made clear, this Eurocentric story of art isn’t new but it is very beautiful. All sorts of wonderful stuff is included: a dizzying kaleidoscope waltz past Cezanne, Van Gogh, Seurat, Matisse, Picasso and more. I particularly liked these three pictures next to each other showing Mondrian’s increasingly abstracted trees.
I rattled through the audiobook version of David Baddiel’s new polemic, The God Desire, in no time at all (well, in two hours and one minute which was how long it was). Baddiel’s argument is essentially depressing (we’re all going to die so invented god as a way of comforting ourselves) but he’s a lot more self-analytical and less macho in presenting it than fellow “fundamentalist atheists” like Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris.
A more positive view was presented by John Green on the Offline with Jon Favreau podcast. I wrote about Offline a few weeks ago so sorry to mention it again so soon but this was a particularly great episode. I love John Green. I’ve never read any of his novels (The Fault In Our Stars etc) but his own (sadly discontinued) podcast The Anthropocene Reviewed and book of the same name were wonderful. I don’t share his religious faith (I’m in agreement with Baddiel there) but his question seems like a crucial one: “How can I fall in love with the world without denying or minimising the reality of suffering… how can I reckon with that reality and emerge from that reckoning hopeful?” And his answers will make even the non-religious feel more positive.
Bye! See you next week!
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In Good Taste is a Sycamore Smyth newsletter by me, Clare Heal. You can also find me on Instagram or visit my website to find information about my catering work, cookery lessons and upcoming events.
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