New quick and easy crock pickle recipe

We have loads of fresh dill in the garden right now, a few cukes, and many more I bought at the farmers market on Saturday.  I just bottled a new batch of crock pickles - i.e. lacto-fermented, non pressure-canned, crunchy wonderful "raw" pickles!  Yum!  We love pickles of all sorts in the house and have been making various krauts and wild ferments for some time.  What I love about crock pickles and wild fermented foods is, that not only do they have a long list of health benefits, but making them is just so easy.  The house isn't heated up during these hot days, the flavours and textures are perfect, and it feels like tapping into an ancient tradition.

This pickle recipe is different from my usual crock pickle recipe (which comes from the amazing book by Sandor Ellix Katz called "Wild Fermentation", where the pickles are left to stand at room temperature in the crock covered with brine for several weeks to months).  This one is a variation for getting good crisp pickles very quickly, with a somewhat milder flavour.  It was actually in the latest Summer issue of the LCBO food & drink magazine - a somewhat unusual place to find recipes but actually most of their recipes I've tried have been wonderful (I imagine they have a great test kitchen).  It's not listed on their website yet so I'll do a loose summary of it here.  I doubled it, using 4 lbs (2 kg) cucumbers, which made 4 large 1 litre jars.

Pickle in Brine Recipe
1) Make a strong salt brine (1/2 cup pickling salt to 8 cups cold water),  for 2 lbs (1 kg) small cucumbers.
2) Remove a small portion of both ends of the cucumber.  Soak pickles in the salt brine, in a large crock or food grade bucket, weighing down pickles with a heavy plate so they are completely covered in brine for 12-24 hours (at room temperature).
3) Then rinse off pickling salt with several changes of water. 
4) Make a vinegar solution of 2 1/2 cups water : 2 cups white vinegar. 
5) Pack pickles into clean narrow-mouthed 1 litre mason jars. Add several cloves of garlic, 2 tsp pickling spices, a branch of dill, a grape leaf (optional), and enough vinegar water to cover to the top over the pickles. 
6) Add clean lids and store in fridge for upto 2 weeks.  Pickles can be eaten right away, but should be eaten within this 2 week timeframe.

Winter Kimchi

I mentioned earlier that I've started another live cultered sauerkraut. It's actually not quite a sauerkraut as it's not just cabbage - it's more of a winter kimchi - a spicy, garlicy, health-tonic made of pickled vegetables. Kimchi can be made in a variety of styles and originates in Korea where it is a national culinary art and passion.

This recipe is loosely based on the one found in Wild Fermentation: The Flavour, Nutrition and Craft of Live-Culture Foods by Sandor Ellix Katz, a fantastic cookbook and cultured food history. This cookbook is always close at hand in our kitchen, as we are trying to work our way through all manner of fermented foods and this wide ranging book covers everything from vegetable ferments (like sauerkraut and pickles); bean ferments (like miso and tempeh); bread ferments (like sourdough and dosas); dairy ferments (like yogurt and savoury cheeses); plus fermented grains, beverages, wines, vinegars and more!

This kimchi is extremely simple to make - the secret is just the right amount of spicing to suit your taste and then allowing enough time to ferment. The recipe is extremely adaptable, just use what vegetables you like or have at hand. Here is an aproximation of what I used:

Winter Kimchi
fresh garlic (3 whole bulbs)
onion (2 large)
ginger (1/2 inch sliced)
dried cayenne peppers (3 large including seeds)
carrots (3 large)
green cabbage (3 heads)
daikon radish (6 inches)
filtered water (14-18 cups)
sea salt (14-18 Tbsp)

First the vegetables are shredded or chopped to a desireable size, then stirred together in a large jar or ceramic crock. The container is then filled with enough brine solution to completely cover the vegetables when weighed down with a large plate and weight - to make the very strong brine solution 1 Tbsp of sea salt added to each cup of filtered water. Then the crock is covered with a clean cloth, and set on the counter to ferment. It can be tasted each day, and any mould is skimmed off. When it achieves desired taste the kimchi can be packed into jars, covered with brine, and refrigerated. True wild lacto-bacilli ferments are never canned or pasteurized, as this kills off the vital healthy bacteria. It can keep almost indefinitely in the fridge, but will likely be eaten in short order! Wild ferments like this are invaluable for building immunity and a healthy digestive system, and should be a regular part of everyone's daily meal routine. Delicious!

New friends at Irvine Creek Organics CSA

Recently we had two young farmers from Irvine Creek Organics come to stay at our B&B. It was lovely to meet them, and we were pleased to hear about all the exciting goings on at the Irvine Creek farm which is located just outside of Fergus, near Belwood Lake. They have a busy CSA, as well as projects like reforesting the land, and even processing farm produce into value-added food items for the winter season.

Yesterday for dinner we cracked open the two gorgeous jars of pickles they brought us - gorgeous deep purple pickled beets with cinnamon and clove, and the best pickled yellow beans I've ever tasted, made with rosemary, lemon and vinegar. In this house we absolutely love pickles, and make an assortment of krauts, pickles and ferments ourselves to preserve our foods for the winter. So, we've tasted a lot of pickles, but these ones were amazing - perfect texture that still held crispness in the vegetables, beautiful combination of spices and herbs. We had to hold ourselves back from eating the entire jars as our evening meal, and managed to savour slowly so we can enjoy these preserves over several evening meals. Irvine Creek is now taking 2010 CSA members, and also selling their pickles at some shops locally (Fergus and Elora?).

www.irvinecreekorganics.com