January 5, 2012
With cabbage season come the desire to make sauerkraut. Homemade sauerkraut doesn't even compare to the store-bought. It is tart, crunchy, and unbelievably good. Add your homemade sauerkraut to hot dogs, sausages, and even on top of a piece of chicken. Practice your pickling and preserving skills with this DIY sauerkraut recipe.
Ingredients:
3 lb of cabbage shredded (it is one big white cabbage, normally…)
1 cup of shredded carrots (normally it is one big carrot)
1/2 teaspoon of bay leaves grinded
10-15 black peppercorns
1 liter or 33.81 fluid ounces of water
2 tablespoons of salt
1.5 tablespoons of sugar
1 cup of cranberries
Directions:
Pickling cabbage by this recipe takes 3-4 days. In my house it takes 3 days , in you house it may be ready sooner or slower, everything depends on the place and the temperature in your house. The cabbage has to “sit”in the dark and warm place and you have to choose a container for pickling that will keep the cabbage pressed and warm during the process of pickling.
Step 1. Shred the cabbage and the carrots. (carrots should be previously peeled and washed). Squeeze and mix carrots and cabbage, Put in a pickling container.
Step 2.Prepare the pickling mixture: preheat the water, when it starts boiling add: salt, sugar and bay leaves. Wait until it will start boiling again and turn the gas off. Cool the mixture and pour it into container with cabbage.
Step 3. Take the peppercorns and put it inside the cabbage as many as you wish. Press the cabbage and put into a dark warm place. (I put it on my fridge under a wok frying pan)
Step 4: Stir every days so that the juices would spread evenly.
Step 5. On day 3 or 4 check for readiness. The cabbage should have slight foam on top. Not a lot.
If the cabbage is ready, take the handful of it squeeze and put in another clean container. When you put all the cabbage into a new container, put washed cranberries on top and coverwith lid.
Serving:
To serve the homemade sauerkraut just finely chop the onion, take from your container as much cabbage as you need. add salt and pepper and 1 tablespoon of olive oil and mix everything very .Serve with mashed potatoes and with a bird.
Enjoy!
P.S. you can cook soup or bake a pie with this sauerkraut, as well as make a lot of salads. Just let me show you in my next posts.
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