Fermented Salsa

                                   

I don't make salsa often. When I do, its usually summer and I need to use up an abundance of tomatoes. I generally dont use any recipe, I just chop tomatoes, onions, garlic, cilantro and chilis. Unfortunately, I didn't stagger my cilantro growing properly and all the mature plants have long been used up and all I have growing are tiny little slow growing sprouts. So, no cilantro. A little bit of acidity is really good at bringing out all the flavors, much like salt. Fresh salsa often gets lime juice and canned usually gets a little vinegar. I thought that making my salsa and then treating it like kim chi would be an interesting way to add that acidity. I put my salsa in a quart mason jar and let it sit out for 3 days, stirring twice a day. It was so good! There was lots of skins, which annoys me in salsa, because I used so many cherry tomatoes and after days of stirring and breaking them up they separated from the fruits. It was really tasty though. Also, I think we are growing yellow jalapeno? Who knew? One plant has chilies that fade to yellow and then get brighter and brighter yellow and never show any signs of a red blush. I didnt realize such a thing even existed...

after sittimg for a day

all stirred back in

Raw Fermented Salsa

~ 3C chopped tomatoes, tossed w/ salt and left in a strainer while chopping other veg
1/2 onion, diced
1/2 green pepper, diced
garlic clove, minced
2 yellow jalapeno, minced
1 Tbl brine from raw cumin beet pickles

Set a strainer over a bowl. Chop tomatoes and put in strainer. Salt heavily and stir a few times while preparing other ingredients. I was able to draw out about 5 oz of liquid from the tomatoes. This greatly improved the texture of the finished salsa. Combine all ingredients in a quart mason jar and stir with a chopstick. Put a lid on lightly, it doesnt need to be air tight. Stir every 12 hours until it starts to smell slightly sour. For me this only took 3 days in the low 80s. I expected it to be quick because everything was chopped small or was a soft tomato. Really good. Im going to make more before summer is over....

Jalapeno Carrot Pickle

I picked 5 lbs of rainbow carrots the other day and was slightly overwhelmed. So I canned some. Now I dont have to worry about them for awhile. I got the recipe from Put em up, this great canning/preserving/etc book that I love. I could only stand to wait about a day before I cracked a jar open. They're so good!! So much for preserving the harvest...

Spicy Carrots

 4 C white vinegar
1 C sugar
3 Tbl salt

2 lbs carrots
6 cloves garlic
2 jalapenos, sliced

In a small saucepan, bring first 3 ingredients to a boil.
Peel carrots and chop down so that they are 1 inch shorter than your jars.
Divide garlic and chilis between 3 clean pint jars.
Pack in carrots.
Fasten rims and put in a boiling canner for 15 mins
I didnt add the optional chili flakes of the original recipe. 
These are briney, sweet, spicy, crunchy and wonderful. 
Next time I will add double jalapeno, they give such a nice flavor without being too hot and the little slices of chili are super good too. There was enough brine leftover that I made a pint of beet pickles too, since I had the canner out and all. (Peeled and sliced beets, added all the dill seeds I just picked)

all the carrots came from this tiny row,
anise hyssop has recently colonized this bed
and the carrots didnt seem too mind

Beet Pickle

I made delicious raw fermented beet pickles. The recipe is from Phickle except i didn't add the basil. I even have way too much basil growing, but cumin seemed like enough. I sliced them thick and left the skins on. They fermented for 10 days in our ridiculous heat wave and were super sour and wonderful.

I have a double shot glass that fits perfectly into skinny mouth canning jars and this is how i should ferment from now on.




Cumin Beet Pickle  (phickle.com)

2 C Water
1 Tbl salt
1 1/2 tsp cumin seed

About a dozen beets; some were super small and a few were large.

I chopped up all the beets I had and it fit in a qt jar. Covered with brine above. Let sit at scorching room temperature for 10 days Cleaned the rim carefully and put a clean cap on it and stored in the fridge. Great snack pickle but i wouldn't put it on a sandwich.

Rat Tail Radish

These odd little vegetables have all come and gone already but we grew so many that they'll be on my plate for months. I made raw fermented pickles out of them to stretch out their eating season. They take longer to grow than many traditional small sized radishes because this strange Indonesian heirloom variety is grown for its seed pods rather than its roots. Most other radishes are picked before they bolt, or send up a flowering stalk. This variety branches out profusely, so profusely in fact that i had to thin out about half of what I had planted to make room for them to grow. On these branches grow an immense array of tiny white/pink/purple flowers. With time, these tiny blossoms become huge radish pods. In fact its easy to get overwhelmed with picking them but persevere because they are best when tender and smaller. I harvested about 9 or 10 pounds over the course of about a month from about a dozen plants. I left the over grown seed pods on the plants, pulled them from the ground and left the whole plant to dry. Now I have lots of seeds for next year, even though I only need a few. Im spreading these to everyone I know. Like many Asian radishes, they are season sensitive. This variety only works when planted in the spring. A lot of small root radishes can be planted at any time and harvested within a month, which makes them great for filling in odd spaces at random times in the garden. These radishes were planted early here in Philadelphia, around mid March, and were harvested between mid May and early June.

Here is how I pickled them:

Rat Tail Radish Pickle

8 C Water
6 Tbl Sea Salt
3Tbl Pickling Spice
2 Cloves Garlic

A cookie jar full of Rat Tails, (maybe 12 C ?....)
Time- about 1-2 weeks in summer, to taste

The exact quantities do not matter. What does matter is the proportions on the brine. I use Sandor Katz recommendation of 4C water: 3Tbl salt for my raw fermenting brine. This is the way pre industrial pickles were made. The salt inhibits the growth of bad bacterias and promotes the growht of benefecial lactobacillus bacterias. The vegetables need to remain submerged under the salty brine. THIS IS CRUCIAL, exposure to air will create mold-which can be skimmed off but its better not to make it in the first place. I use a big cookie jar and then a smaller jar placed in the opening to weigh down the veggies. I then cover the top with a dish towel to keep bugs from landing in it.

As these good bacteria grow, the brine naturally turns sour! You dont need to add vinegar, which is itself a fermented product. I think I let this batch sit for 8 days, I tasted it and like it so I packed it up and put it in the fridge. Once each jar is packed, cover the contents with the brine. Refrigeration greatly slows the fermenting process but does not stop it. You can try packing them into smaller containers over times so you will get pickles of varying sourness if you like. Raw fermented products will continue to ferment indefinitely. Ive had sauerkrauts in my fridge for a year without them going bad. Time and temperature and salt are all related. The saltier the brine, the slower the ferment. The slower the ferment, the more complex flavor development. In the Winter a batch of Saurkraut or Kim Chi could take months to be sufficiently fermented, using the same amount of salt that might only take weeks in the Summer.

The Rat Tails are great fermented raw because they stay crisper. I water bath canned a few jars earlier in the season and wasnt pleased with the texture. They were really tasty both ways though. They naturally have a peppery/mustardy flavor that goes great with sour brine, garlic, fresh herbs or pickling spices. Hit me up if you want some seeds for next year if you're in Philly or buy some online from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.