Lindsey Nair

Features staff writer Lindsey writes about food, restaurants and recipes.

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Recipes

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• Baked Crispy Chicken Fingers

• Recipe archive

Ingredients:

Equipment:

1. You will need a gallon of space for every 5 lbs. of vegetables, and the container must be crockery, glass or food-grade plastic. That means you’ll need either a 5-gallon container or five one-gallon containers for this recipe.

2. For each container, you should have a plate that fits down inside the container but covers most of the cabbage.

3. Each container will also need a weight to place on top of the plate. A good weight is a clean, plastic bag filled with a brine solution of 4 1/2 Tbsp. of salt to every 3 quarts of water.

Method:

1. Working with 5 pounds of cabbage at a time, discard outer leaves, rinse heads well with cold water and drain. Cut heads in quarters, remove cores and discard. Shred or slice cabbage thinly.

2. Place cabbage inside fermenting container. Each 5 pounds of cabbage should be mixed well with 3 Tbsp. salt. Make sure your hands are clean and the salt gets mixed well with cabbage. Using less or more salt could affect the safety and quality of your final product.

3. Pack cabbage firmly into container. The goal here is for the cabbage to release most of its natural juices, so feel free to use a clean kitchen implement to tamp the cabbage down until you just can’t cram it down any tighter and most of the juice appears to have leeched out. Your cabbage needs to be 4 to 5 inches below the mouth of the container.

4. If the cabbage juice does not cover the cabbage, make enough brine to cover it. To make brine: Add 1 1/2 Tbsp. of salt per quart of boiling water, stir to dissolve and then allow to cool to room temperature. Pour over cabbage to cover by a couple of inches.

5. Place clean plate upside down over cabbage and weight down with your bags of salt water. Cover entire container with a clean, dry towel to keep out dust and bugs. Store container at 70 to 75 degrees while fermenting. At 70 to 75 degrees, it will take 3 to 4 weeks to ferment. At 60 to 65 degrees, it will take 5 to 6 weeks. At a colder temperature, it may not ferment at all.

6. If you weigh the cabbage down with brine-filled bags, you don’t need to disturb the crock until the time is up (when bubbling has ceased).

7. Fully fermented kraut can be stored in the refrigerator for several months.

Source: National Center for Home Food Preservation, University of Georgia.

On the Web: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp. Click on "How do I ferment?"