salt Archives -

Sweet Miso, Small Batch

Posted by Lindsay on June 8, 2017

Sweet soybean miso, 13 months old

Sweet soybean miso, 13 months old: Salt crust on surface, with tamari pool in the centre

I made this miso with the intention to begin eating it after just six months… Hence the almost equal ratio of beans to koji rice, as it was meant to be a quick ferment, by miso standards! But then I mostly forgot about it, and it sat in the cool darkness beneath my house for over a year. Luckily, miso is pretty forgiving. This is utterly delicious! The recipe came from the files of the always inspiring Art of Miso group on Facebook.

Mixing the miso

Salting the inside of the jar

2 1/2 cups dried soy beans
1/3 cup + 1 Tbsp coarse canning salt (plus more for jar)
2 1/4 cup koji rice
3/4 to 1 cup bean cooking liquid

Cover beans with several inches of water, and cook until soft. Strain and reserve cooking liquid.
Let beans cool.
Wash and dry a 2 Litre jar.
Dissolve salt in 3/4 cup bean cooking liquid.
Mash or puree beans, with immersion blender or food mill or hands, adding the salt and bean cooking liquid as needed to make a thick paste.
Mix in koji rice, and more liquid if desired.
Wet the inside of the jar with fresh water and coat lightly with salt.
Form miso into tight balls in your hands, then pack tightly into jar, pushing them down firmly intro each other to fill jar with no air holes.
Fill jar to within 3″ of top.
Add 1/2″ of salt on surface.
If desired, add a small jar on surface as a weight; this helps to create a pool of tamari to harvest later.
Put on lid, but do not fully tighten… We need air!
Store somewhere cool and dark for 6 months.

Freshly made! See the salt crystals still clear on the surface and edges?

After 13 months! There’s tamari visible on the surface, as well as some in the bottom of the jar

Want to come make miso with me? We’ll be doing just that on Saturday, June 17th, at the Compost Education Centre!

FIJ Challenge: Sunchoke Kraut (A Jerusalem Artichoke Experiment)

Posted by Lindsay on February 12, 2017

I’ve signed up to do the Food in Jars Mastery Challenge! You can learn more about it here. February’s challenge was preserving with salt, which is one of my favourite things. I hope to make a few recipes before the month is through! Today, however, I decided to try out an experiment, by fermenting a kraut made from sunchokes, the tuber also known as Jerusalem artichokes.

My inspiration came from the simple fact that these showed up in my veggie box from Saanich Organics this week! And they didn’t make it into last night’s dinner.

While a quick search turned up a couple blogs and websites with recipes for brined sunchoke pickles, I saw nothing about turning it into a simple salt-and-shredded-tuber kraut. So, I have no idea how this will turn out. Fun!

I decided to go with a 3% salinity, for the ease of math and because my house is so cold at this time of year that I don’t worry about mold growing. If it were summer, I’d likely bump that up to 5% or so, just to reduce the chances of gross stuff growing.

It didn’t look too appealing once I’d packed it into the jar, frankly… The brine that developed was an unpleasant colour. Still, I’m looking forward to seeing how this goes.

Sunchoke Kraut

300 g sunchokes, shredded (2 cups)

10 g coarse pickling salt (1 1/2 teaspoons)

Mix sunchokes with salt and pack firmly into a fermentation vessel; I used a mason jar with an airlock lid. Let sit at room temperature for at least a week… Maybe more? Stay tuned!

Les fleurs d’ail salées (Salted Garlic Scapes)

Posted by Lindsay on June 10, 2015

I had heard of herbes salées, but never made it until last summer, when a recipe for this salted herb and vegetable condiment showed up in my email, as one to be tested for a cook book. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but diligently followed the instructions and then filled out my feedback form. I was working at a local organic farm a few days a week, so had access to plenty of extra imperfect produce… Grinding it up and mixing with salt seemed like as good an idea as any, for making use of what couldn’t be sold at the market.

That jar sat on the counter for a few days, then went into the fridge, and after a month or so I remembered it and sprinkled a bit of the mixture onto some mushrooms frying in olive oil, in place of regular salt.

Well.

Wow.

It was delicious. The flavours of the different herbs and vegetables had all melded, into a smooth but vibrant seasoning that complimented the mushrooms perfectly. I soon found that herbes salées was a fantastic addition to just about every savoury dish, especially the vegetarian fare that we eat most of the time at our house: Roasted vegetables, egg dishes, beans and rice, hearty soups. Even my spouse, who is often very (judiciously) wary of the jars of experimental foods that crowd our fridge, was seeking it out… That’s a win.

Unfortunately, I can’t share that recipe with you, as it’s not mine… Though of course I’ll tell you when the cookbook it’s in is published.

However! Since that first jar, I’ve made many versions of herbes salées, using a general rule of a 2:1 ratio by weight, of herbs/vegetables to salt.

Here is my latest, a tribute to one of my favourite seasonal treats, garlic scapes.

Les fleurs d’ail salées (Salted Garlic Scapes)

Yields ~3/4 cup

100g garlic scapes (I used 5 scapes)

50g coarse pickling salt

Slice scapes roughly, then run through a meat grinder or pulse in a food processor until finely minced.

Combine with salt and mix thoroughly with a spoon.

Pack into a clean jar, and cover with clean lid.

If your home is relatively cool, this will last a month or more on the counter; I keep mine in the fridge, as my place is rather hot these days. This recipe is simple to scale up! When I make larger batches, I store the jars in the basement, on the cold concrete floor.

What’s that jar? This is a Le Parfait brand, wire bail jar with a rubber seal (style/size: Terrine 200). I was lucky to find it a thrift store for a dollar, in like-new condition!

Miso: Delicious.

Posted by Lindsay on May 30, 2015

I can’t believe I managed to wait over a year! And also that I didn’t make more batches during those months of waiting… If I’d known how good this would be, I would have.

This is the jar that I topped with a thick layer of salt, which has turned into a crust; the other jar has instead a smaller jar tucked inside the lid, pushing down on the miso. I have yet to open that one, but it looks much the same as this.

Micro-Batch Mustard Ruby Kraut: Recipe & Photo Tutorial

Posted by Lindsay on November 28, 2014

Look at the layers in this head of red cabbage! Like contour lines on a map… So perfect… Almost as perfect as a good kraut!

Micro-Batch Mustard Ruby Kraut

2 Cups finely sliced red cabbage (I used about 1⁄8 of a head)

1 teaspoon pickling salt

1 teaspoon red mustard seeds

A few splashes of dechlorinated water

Finely sliced red cabbage – If you have a mandolin or other cabbage shredding device, use that! I made do with a sharp knife.

Two cups of sliced cabbage, ready to go

The cabbage in a large bowl, with room for mixing

Add 1 teaspoon of coarse pickling salt

Add a teaspoon of red mustard seeds

Now mix with a clean hand…

Mixing…

Still mixing…

The cabbage is releasing juice!

Pack the mixture into a clean, 500 mL glass canning jar

Don`t forget the juice

Press it down, to see if there`s enough liquid to cover the cabbage… Not quite enough

This is dechlorinated water: Tap water that was boiled and left to cool on the counter… It works well for fermenting, though it likely still contains chloramine

Pour in a little bit of the water, just to cover cabbage

Just enough liquid to cover the cabbage!

Fermentation lid, ready to go: 3-piece airlock, plastic lid with grommet, rubber ring, metal ring

Fit the 3-piece airlock snugly into the grommet in the plastic lid

Place the rubber ring on the lip of the jar

The lid fits onto the jar next

Then the metal ring screws down and holds the lid securely on the jar

Remove the cap from the airlock, and add water up to the fill line, then replace cap

Don`t forget to label your ferment! Name and date, please

Now the hard part… Waiting. Maybe a week, probably four!

Micro-batch experiment: Carrots with lemon

Posted by Lindsay on November 1, 2014

Carrots from my friend’s farm, and Meyer lemon from the tree we’re tree-sitting for the year… Sounds like it could be good, yes? Let’s find out!

Carrots still covered in dirt from when they were harvested in the summer… It keeps them fresh and crisp

All washed and ready for chopping

Cutting matchsticks became tiring, so I tried out my neat shredding tool… Faster, but not as tidy

Almost there! I’m aiming for 2 cups of carrots

Pretty lemon, though quite small

Half of lemon, diced

Carrots and lemon in bowl, then 1 teaspoon of pickling salt

Mix it up!

Lots of juice coming out of this combination

Still not quite wet enough… Adding a splash of dechlorinated water to the packed jar

Airlock fermentation lid on the top, and labeled… The main ingredients would all be from within 100 miles, if only I’d used local salt!

Stay tuned for update in a few weeks when we open this up to try it.

Miso progress

Posted by Lindsay on August 16, 2014

I noticed that one of my jars of miso in the cold storage has been leaking goo onto its shelf… I tasted the goo, and it’s a perfect, complex, fermenting, tamari-ish flavour! I’m very excited.

How much longer shall I wait before opening the jars themselves?