Home Grown Happiness

Fermenting your food is one of the healthiest ways to preserve your produce and what better way to start your fermenting journey than with a classic sauerkraut. It literally means ‘sour cabbage’ and after cabbage sits in its own salty water, this is exactly what it becomes. Traditionally made with green cabbage, purple cabbage adds extra benefits with its antioxidant power. It’s tart, sour, crunchy and delicious, teeming with probiotics.  

You want to start with an organic or homegrown cabbage. Non-organic cabbages will have been sprayed with pesticides which will slow down your ferment and pesticides are obviously also not good for you. An organic cabbage will bring a whole bunch of good-fermenting-activating bacteria to the party!

Then once you have your cabbage, strip off the outer leaves and put these on the side for later.

Then remove the cabbage hearts (the hard white bit in the middle) and chop up your cabbage. As fine or as chunky as you like, bearing in mind that the finer you chop it the faster it will ferment.

In winter, for every 1kg of cabbage, I add in 1 tablespoon of salt.  If I make this in summer, I add 1 and 1/4 tablespoon of salt.

Why different salt amounts depending on the season?

The hotter the temperature, the faster the cabbage will ferment and sometimes spoil. Adding a little extra salt in summer will help inhibit that. In winter, the cooler temperature slows down the ferment so a little less salt will counteract that. This is according to temperatures in New Zealand. If you live in a hot country, adding 1 and 1/4 tablespoon of salt per kg is a good idea.

If your cabbage does start to grow mould or scum on the top, you can skim it off as long as it hasn’t been on there for more than 24 hours as then it could affect your sauerkraut taste. Mould growing on salt fermented vegetables is unlikely to be dangerous.

When you have added the salt it’s time to massage it into the cabbage. about 10-15 of minutes of working the salt into the cabbage.* The salt draws out the water from the cabbage and it’s this water that will act as the ‘brine’. 

*If you have no time to massage the cabbage, mix the salt and cabbage together briefly then place a plate over the top of the cabbage and salt in the bowl with a weight on it and let it sit for about 30-40 minutes. This will also draw the moisture out of the cabbage.

Now you can add extra flavorings such as fennel seeds, caraway seeds, mustard seeds, celery seeds or whatever spices you like. If you’re using green cabbage, some fresh or dried turmeric is great too.

It’s now time to add your cabbage to sterilised jars. Squish it right down into the jar, to squeeze as much in is you can and force the liquid to come up above the cabbage. Cover with any remaining cabbage juice. It’s now important to keep that cabbage submerged as this fermenting is an anaerobic process (meaning without oxygen.) You can use a couple of the large outer cabbage leaves you initially saved to hold the cabbage under.

If it’s not staying submerged enough you can add a weight on top such as a steralised jar or ziplock bag filled with water. Cover loosely with a lid, so that the gases made in the ferment can escape. If you choose to seal your jar, ‘burp’ it daily to release built up gases.

Keep the sauerkraut sitting on your bench or in a cupboard out of direct sunlight for 1-3 weeks, tasting after 1 to see if it is fermented to your liking. Once it’s how you like it, you can rinse the sauerkraut first to get rid of any excess salt, then store in a sealed jar in the refrigerator and use within a month. If you’re not rinsing it, it can store in the refrigerator for up to 6 months.

It’s pouring rain outside and I have the heater on full blast. This weather calls for comfort food and right now I couldn’t imagine a meal more comforting than gnocchi.

Little soft pillows of dough. Tiny cushion dumplings. Small potato clouds… how many ways can you describe gnocchi?

But let’s put textures aside for a second. Obviously the melt in the mouth quality of gnocchi is critical, but let’s not forget the other aspect of what makes gnocchi so great: it’s a wonderful vessel for sauce. A rich tomato sauce, a creamy mushroom sauce or a simple browned butter, the possibilities are endless.

One of my favourites, which is what is featured in this recipe is a butter sauce with thyme, lemon and garlic. The simplicity of these three ingredients is sensational, and coupled with a fluffy gnocchi, it’s perfection on a plate. Before we can get there however, it’s important to understand what makes a good gnocchi (and what doesn’t!)

A gnocchi is a dumpling of dough. The dough can be made with a variety of ingredients such as semolina, wheat flour, cornmeal, potatoes, cheese or pumpkin. Whatever the dough ingredients, the idea behind them is the same: you want the gnocchi to be as light as possible.

Little dough bricks are a no-no.

This means the the dough needs to be worked as little as possible. Overworking gnocchi dough makes it tough and dense. This recipe uses potatoes as the main ingredients and potatoes too can be overworked. When mashing the potatoes, this needs to be done as briskly as possible, enough to get a rid of the lumps but not too much that you end up with potato glue. Using a potato ricer is a great way to get smooth mash effienctly without overworking.

If you don’t have one of those, I find pushing the potato through a sieve works too.

The potatoes that are ideal for gnocchi are the varieties that are fluffy and dry, a good baking potato. Varieties such as Agria (which I have used) Ilam hardy and Red Rascal. When you have boiled and drained your potatoes, return them to the pot and place it back on the still hot (but turned off) element to evaporate any left over moisture. Let your potatoes cool before mashing.

Once you have mashed your potatoes, it’s time for the other ingredients which are salt, herbs, flour and an egg. The herbs and salt add flavour, the egg will bind the mix and the flour helps to add structure. How much flour to use however will depend on your potatoes, how many you have, how much water they have retained and the size of your egg. It’s best to add your flour in slowly, half a cup at a time, until you reach a soft ball of dough. Don’t add too much.

When your dough is mixed, portion it into 5 even pieces and roll them out into long sausages, about 1.5 cm thick. Do this carefully but quickly so again, you’re not overworking your dough.

Lay your sausages out on a lightly floured bench and use a sharp knife to cut each sausages into small 1 cm gnocchi pieces. Place these pieces on a floured plate or tray until ready to cook.

Bring a pot of salted water to boil. Once it’s boiling, place about 10 gnocchi at a time in the water. If you add too many, the water will cool and your gnocchi will overcook and become gluggy. The gnocchi should cook for about 3-4 minutes and rise to the top when done. Scoop them out with a slotted spoon and leave to drain in a colander while the rest cook.

Now that your gnocchi has been cooked, what sauce you choose is up to you.

I’ve chosen a butter sauce and as this is a simple sauce, you can add more flavour by frying the gnocchi a little in the butter and slightly caramelising them.  I also added in chopped thyme, lemon zest and garlic.