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What Are You Preserving, and How Are You Doing It? (2016–)


Anna N

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11 hours ago, ElsieD said:

I've never heard of nor seen dehydrated onions.  Did you dry them in a dehydrator and how do they reconstitute?

It's the homemade version of the dried minced onions in the spice aisle at your supermarket. I plan to try some in a couple of weeks, when I harvest the onions from my garden (and - an important point - not until *after* I've finished drying apples, cranberries, rose hips, etc in case I need to soak the trays in bleach for a while to get the onion smell out).

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“Who loves a garden, loves a greenhouse too.” - William Cowper, The Task, Book Three

 

"Not knowing the scope of your own ignorance is part of the human condition...The first rule of the Dunning-Kruger club is you don’t know you’re a member of the Dunning-Kruger club.” - psychologist David Dunning

 

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14 hours ago, ElsieD said:

I've never heard of nor seen dehydrated onions.  Did you dry them in a dehydrator and how do they reconstitute?

Here you can buy them in the spice section of the grocers.  I keep them on hand all the time, they're invaluable for bread-making.

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We have on our olive trees many immature (and never to mature) tiny, 1/4 - 1/3" olives.   

1904728038_ScreenShot2019-10-02at11_11_16AM.thumb.png.82b8e25886997948b70a83e8b925f01a.png 

Here you can see the comparison in size with a normal, say "large" olive at top, near center of the pic.

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I can't believe that in the old countries these fruits were left to rot.    Any ideas on what to do with them and how?     I have the feeling that they could be used to make inferior oil, but that is not worth our time and effort.

 

Thoughts?

 

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eGullet member #80.

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2 hours ago, ninagluck said:

Pickled green tomatoes, a recipe from my granny, for sure more than 100 years old as she took over from her mum. 

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Would you please tell more about your pickled green tomatoes? A recipe would be welcome, especially if it were to go into RecipeGullet where people could find it easily. I have been playing with fried green tomatoes lately, but I think a pickled version would go over well in our household.

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Nancy Smith, aka "Smithy"
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"Every day should be filled with something delicious, because life is too short not to spoil yourself. " -- Ling (with permission)
"There comes a time in every project when you have to shoot the engineer and start production." -- author unknown

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I've been stalking NYC's Chinatown stores for  fermented red wine lees to make all sorts of exciting Southern Chinese dishes but no luck 

 

The closes I got were white wine lees and I found out that it's used for a lot of desserts etc. and not for savory but I bought this fermented stuff and marinating it with chicken tonight 

 

I hope to eventually find those red wine lees so I could do my own fermenting. Maybe will buy on Amazon 

 

here is the link https://carolynjphillips.blogspot.com/2011/08/scarlet-rice-wine-of-northern-fujian.html

 

If anyone can advise on whether or not I can substitute white lees for red lees in these dished that would be helpful 

 

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2 hours ago, eugenep said:

I've been stalking NYC's Chinatown stores for fermented red wine lees to make all sorts of exciting Southern Chinese dishes but no luck

 

I'm not surprised. I live in southern China and wouldn't know where to start looking for it. It's pretty rare here, too.

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...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

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12 hours ago, ninagluck said:

Pickled green tomatoes, a recipe from my granny, for sure more than 100 years old as she took over from her mum. 

IMG_4883.JPG

IMG_4886.JPG

Would love to hear more about your process!

 

Guessing you are salting them in that bowl?  Anything else besides onions and chili?  What are your next steps and is that oil being used to preserve?

 

I have about 10lbs still on the plants waiting to be picked and am debating what to do with them...

 

 

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9 hours ago, liuzhou said:

 

I'm not surprised. I live in southern China and wouldn't know where to start looking for it. It's pretty rare here, too.

I heard Italians (in Italy) don't know what Chicken Parmesan is and I think Alton Brown said it was invented in America. 

 

I wonder if it's still eaten in China - the red wine lees dishes? 

 

But - damn - I'm like super astounded by the amount of fermentation, drying, preserving of  Chinese cuisine. It's like pork but also duck, chicken, beef, seafood like scallops, shrimp, sea cucumbers etc and a crazy amount of vegetables. 

 

I read Noma's fermentation book but it doesn't compare to traditional Chinese cuisine in preserving and fermenting. It's like everything under the sun. Super good too. And the amount of knowledge is super vast 

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11 hours ago, eugenep said:

I wonder if it's still eaten in China - the red wine lees dishes?

 

It is a specialty of north Fujian province - a relatively small area. Very few people have eaten it even there.

 

Yes, China has a long and wide history of fermenting and otherwise preserving foods of all kinds. This was born of necessity in times of famine.

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...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

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Sauerkraut, 4 days after the beginning. My good friend gave me a head of red cabbage that came out to 1.81 kg; I added 3% salt for around 54g. I'd have added caraway seeds, but we're all out...either that, or the backup supplies are hiding in one of several backup storage areas.

 

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This morning I punched it down and tasted the broth. I think it's headed in the right direction.

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Nancy Smith, aka "Smithy"
HosteG Forumsnsmith@egstaff.org

Follow us on social media! Facebook; instagram.com/egulletx; twitter.com/egullet

"Every day should be filled with something delicious, because life is too short not to spoil yourself. " -- Ling (with permission)
"There comes a time in every project when you have to shoot the engineer and start production." -- author unknown

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  • 2 weeks later...

Sauerkraut,  

!. the last of my 2018 batch from August , still fresh and clean.

2. the new batch ready, Polish cabbage, big and hard. I will grate a carrot and an onion in the mix.

 

 

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Martial.2,500 Years ago:

If pale beans bubble for you in a red earthenware pot, you can often decline the dinners of sumptuous hosts.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I am in the process of making pomegranate molasses.  My neighbor left 4 bag of poms in my courtyard, over 100 fruit.   I spent the last few days chipping away at getting the arils out.  I used my steam juicer to extract the juice.  It came out a dark purple color.   I was afraid it would taste cooked, but it tasted fine, more sweet than I'm used to.

 

I am now reducing 7 quarts of juice and 1 quart of lemon juice and adding sugar to balance.

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I finished the pom molasses.  It went well, excluding an end of day incident which I might put in the "I Will Never Again" thread.

 

I reduced 7 quarts of fresh pom juice (neighbors), 1 quart of lemon juice (my tree, canned last year) and I'm guessing 1 to 1 1/4 cups of sugar to 1 pint of molasses.

 

It's dark, pungent sweet and sour.   I might have went slightly into the caramel range, due to "my incident", but I am happy with the results.  This stuff is dense.

 

I still have another 3 quarts of fresh juice for drinking.

 

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Edited by lemniscate (log)
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I am almost ready to take the next foray into canning: pressure.

 

Mostly it would be soups that I can't buy in stores anymore (I am looking at you Campbell's, you discontinued Pepperpot😠) like my Mom's Polish Beet Soup (also possibly her Dill Pickle soup), and I like Manhattan Clam Chowder but I don't like the commercial offerings.   I'm pretty sure I am the only one in the household interested in these soups, so I'd probably stick to pint jars for smaller servings.  My thought is it would be like having a serving size like a traditional sized can of soup in the cupboard.

 

I think it would be fun and rewarding to resurrect some of my Polish Gma's soups we don't make anymore due to the problem of scale. 

 

Still got my eye on the Presto induction friendly pressure canner, but since I just bought the Vacmaster VP215, I have to money-up a bit again.

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1 hour ago, lemniscate said:

Still got my eye on the Presto induction friendly pressure canner, but since I just bought the Vacmaster VP215, I have to money-up a bit again.

 

I have the old-school aluminum Presto, but haven't yet used it much. I bought it (barely used) for my dad the year before he died, and so far have only used it a couple of times to can stock (in the interest of preserving freezer space). Interested to see how you fare, once you accumulate the cash.

“Who loves a garden, loves a greenhouse too.” - William Cowper, The Task, Book Three

 

"Not knowing the scope of your own ignorance is part of the human condition...The first rule of the Dunning-Kruger club is you don’t know you’re a member of the Dunning-Kruger club.” - psychologist David Dunning

 

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I've canned tomato soup, back when all I canned was water-bath. I also canned chili base -- tomatoes, peppers, onions, spices; add ground beef, a bottle of beer, and there's chili. (The IP is great for this, because you can thaw/cook a lump of frozen beef, then break it up and brown it off before you add the chili fixin's.) In inherited a pressure canner, so may branch out into lower-acid soups. I recently tried a carrot-sweet potato soup that was really excellent, and might can well.

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Don't ask. Eat it.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Made a batch of David Lebovitz's Cranberry Chutney this AM.  He says to use any combination, of dried fruit: dates, figs, raisins, apricots, candied ginger, dried cherries, cranberries, pineapples, or other favorites, including chopped candied orange or lemon peel. 

I used candied ginger, dried blueberries and some of those dried, sweetened mandarin orange segments from TJ's.  I also followed the head note suggestion to include a branch of rosemary  while simmering. 

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I used a baharat spice blend from Shaya in lieu of the ground spices in the recipe and a couple of de arbol chilies instead of chili flakes .

I got 3 half-pint jars to process plus a half a jar to try on toast with some goat cheese:

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