Sauerkraut is just salt and cabbage, with the fermentation of the natural sugar in the cabbage being done by the lactic acid bacteria that are in the air and on your hands. It’s best eaten raw as a side dish. You can also add small amounts of the juice to foods without cooking them, as this is meant to be a good inoculant for your gut health.
My Russian grandma used to make a barrel of sauerkraut each autumn in the old days to last the family till next year – she liked it so much that one year she ate it all soon after she made it – her husband was a bit shocked when he realised where the sauerkraut had disappeared to. Unfortunately my darling grandma’s description of how to make sauerkraut were really inadequate for a beginner, so I created a stinking mess in an enamel bowl that put me off for a long while.
But, actually, it’s not that hard. When done successfully, a sour, anaerobic fermentation is created and the resulting kraut is meant to last you all winter in cold climates when fresh veggies are less available
Ingredients
Cabbage
Salt (Use a pure fine ground salt with no additives. Sea salt is great as it has added minerals.)
Caraway seeds, juniper berries or peppercorns (all optional)
A small amount of grated carrot or beetroot (optional)
I have read that 2-3% salt by weight is recommended but the quantities in recipes vary a lot, so don’t concern yourself too much. 1 tablespoon of salt is around 18g so 2-4% by weight is 1-1½ tablespoons of salt to 1kg cabbage. Most cabbages are 2-3kg whole weight, but you don’t use the outer leaves or the core.
Method
You will need a strong glass jar or the glass may crack as you need to press down the cabbage to exclude as much air as possible. A pickle jar is usually strong enough. The ideal shape is tall and narrow, but you should be able to get your hand down into it to pack the kraut in.
You will also need some weights to hold down the leaf – small glass jars or a clean rock would do.
Before you start cutting the cabbage, peel off any damaged outer leaves and save a good leaf to weigh down the kraut.
Cut the cabbage into halves, then quarters, then shred it into long thin strips (but don’t use the core). Then salt it and pummel it for 5-10 minutes until it softens; (a blunt ended rolling pin is good for this). It lets out some juice (some recipes say allow it to sit to let out more juice too).
You can add a teaspoon of caraway seeds or a few juniper berries. Peppercorns are good too.
Then squeeze balls of the mix in your hand to squeeze out some juice and pack it down tightly into a jar, making sure you keep all the liquid. As you pack in each layer of cabbage, tamp it down with a tamper or rolling pin. Leave at least 8cm space on top. Cover with the strained liquid as you don’t want any floaty bit of cabbage.
Place a cabbage leaf on top to stop air getting in contact with the kraut, put a little bowl, jar or weight on it to hold the cabbage leaf down, and loosely screw on the lid, keeping all the cabbage under the liquid as far as possible and discarding of any floaty bits of cabbage that have come up.
Don’t over-fill the jar as the fermentation produces carbon dioxide and may bubble over, (about an 8 cm gap up the top is good). Also put a dish under it to catch juices as it often bubbles over.
Leave to ferment for 3-5 days. A good temperature for fermentation is about 18 degrees C, so on top of the fridge in your kitchen is ideal; not too hot and not too cold. Open the jar once a day to burp it and let off the excess carbon dioxide. You may also need to press the cabbage down to release bubbles that have formed in the mix so that the juice doesn’t overflow.
Taste the juice and, if it is sour enough, put it in the fridge. , It should just have a sour cabbagey smell – no unpleasant odours. You can keep it in the fridge for months.
Variants:
www.paleoleap.com/fermented-food-recipes.
www.thehealthychef.com/blogs/recipes/polish-sauerkraut.
www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/simple-sauerkraut.
Author
Marina Bistrin
Macleod