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

[FauxPas]

I never got around to actually making it, but I was going to try tomato marmalade as someone I knew raved about it - can't remember who now of course.  🙂  There's a recipe at US National Center for Home Food Preservation. 

https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_07/tomato_marmalade.html

 

I also have a recipe in one of my small-batch preserving books (by Ellie Topp & Margaret Howard) (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) which uses about 2.5 lbs (5 cups) of coarsely chopped peeled tomatoes, 2 oranges and 1 lemon (halved, seeded and finely chopped in blender or food processor) and 4 cups of sugar. All boiled until it forms a gel (about an hour), stirred frequently. Makes about 6 cups and can be processed for 10 mins to preserve in jars. A variation uses 3 Tbsp of finely chopped peeled ginger and is recommended as an accompaniment to chicken, pork or fish. 

 

Not sure if that appeals to you, though, @blue_dolphin  🙂

[haresfur]

Semi-dried Romas then stored in olive oil in the fridge (freezer would be better for long-term).

[FauxPas]

Made my first batch of fermented sauerkraut. Cabbage with a good bit of carrot gives it a hint of orange. it's really quite good and it was very easy, not sure why it took me so long to try this! I would like to do fermented hot sauce this Fall. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Senior Sea Kayaker]

I went a bit overboard last week when I found tomatoes on the vine at $2/Kg. and picked up 5 Kg. Had them spread over the island and side table until yesterday and got to work.

Made 3 liters of gazpacho (3/4 for the freezer and the remainder to eat fresh). Same recipe I posted in the soup topic.

Made @ElainaA's slow roasted tomatoes. 4 hours @225 F. down to 2 x 250 ml./1 C.

Used 2 of the tomatoes for shakshuka this morning and have 8 left to eat fresh. 

The tomatoes were pretty decent for winter grocery tomatoes.

 

 

 

[FrogPrincesse]

After the new year, I made goose rillettes with the carcass from the goose I had cooked at Christmas. I cut it in half and put it in the instant pot with some water and pressure cooked it. Then I transferred all the meat to a Dutch oven (discarding the skin), added some goose fat (set aside from cooking the goose) and some of the stock. I cooked it for a bit at low temperature, mixed and shredded it (a potato masher works well for that purpose), and transferred into jars with a layer of goose fat on top. The recipe was loosely based on the "simple rillettes from confit" recipe in Ruhlman & Polcyn's Charcuterie (time to re-activate the thread?).

 

Great stuff on a slice of rustic bread with some cornichons! Next time I will probably add thyme, bay leaf and sneak in a little bit of cognac/armagnac for an extra boost of flavor.

 

 

 

 

[Smithy]

34 minutes ago, FrogPrincesse said:

After the new year, I made goose rillettes with the carcass from the goose I had cooked at Christmas. I cut it in half and put it in the instant pot with some water and pressure cooked it. Then I transferred all the meat to a Dutch oven (discarding the skin), added some goose fat (set aside from cooking the goose) and some of the stock. I cooked it for a bit at low temperature, mixed and shredded it (a potato masher works well for that purpose), and transferred into jars with a layer of goose fat on top. The recipe was loosely based on the "simple rillettes from confit" recipe in Ruhlman & Polcyn's Charcuterie (time to re-activate the thread?).

 

Great stuff on a slice of rustic bread with some cornichons! Next time I will probably add thyme, bay leaf and sneak in a little bit of cognac/armagnac for an extra boost of flavor.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for bringing this up. I have a jar of rabbit rilllettes that I bought on impulse at a favorite restaurant in October, and it's still sitting in the refrigerator. it's easy for me to overlook it, because (a) it's small and hides easily and (b) I haven't known really what to do with it. Put it on toast or crackers! What could be easier?

[FrogPrincesse]

5 minutes ago, Smithy said:

 

Thanks for bringing this up. I have a jar of rabbit rilllettes that I bought on impulse at a favorite restaurant in October, and it's still sitting in the refrigerator. it's easy for me to overlook it, because (a) it's small and hides easily and (b) I haven't known really what to do with it. Put it on toast or crackers! What could be easier?

You are welcome! It's great for a quick lunch with a green salad. In France, rillettes sandwiches (inside a baguette, with sliced cornichons) are pretty common as well!

Edited January 12 by FrogPrincesse (log)

[Shelby]

1 hour ago, FrogPrincesse said:

After the new year, I made goose rillettes with the carcass from the goose I had cooked at Christmas. I cut it in half and put it in the instant pot with some water and pressure cooked it. Then I transferred all the meat to a Dutch oven (discarding the skin), added some goose fat (set aside from cooking the goose) and some of the stock. I cooked it for a bit at low temperature, mixed and shredded it (a potato masher works well for that purpose), and transferred into jars with a layer of goose fat on top. The recipe was loosely based on the "simple rillettes from confit" recipe in Ruhlman & Polcyn's Charcuterie (time to re-activate the thread?).

 

Great stuff on a slice of rustic bread with some cornichons! Next time I will probably add thyme, bay leaf and sneak in a little bit of cognac/armagnac for an extra boost of flavor.

 

 

 

 

Awesome!  

[Senior Sea Kayaker]

1 hour ago, FrogPrincesse said:

After the new year, I made goose rillettes with the carcass from the goose I had cooked at Christmas. I cut it in half and put it in the instant pot with some water and pressure cooked it. Then I transferred all the meat to a Dutch oven (discarding the skin), added some goose fat (set aside from cooking the goose) and some of the stock. I cooked it for a bit at low temperature, mixed and shredded it (a potato masher works well for that purpose), and transferred into jars with a layer of goose fat on top. The recipe was loosely based on the "simple rillettes from confit" recipe in Ruhlman & Polcyn's Charcuterie (time to re-activate the thread?).

 

Great stuff on a slice of rustic bread with some cornichons! Next time I will probably add thyme, bay leaf and sneak in a little bit of cognac/armagnac for an extra boost of flavor.

 

Looks great. I've made pork, rabbit or duck rillettes in the past and I'm certain I'd enjoy goose.

Envious  😇

 

 

[Smithy]

 

I gave my fermenting weights to my great-niece last summer, and now I'm on a fermentation kick. I got this set. Actually, I got 2 sets: one for wide-mouth jars and one for regular-mouth jars, but one set hasn't come. What I like about this is that it has vented lids as well as weights. We'll see how it goes! The acacia pounder is quite gratifying to use. 🙂

 

It's easy to underestimate the value of that pounder, though. The jar on the left contains half a head of red cabbage after shredding, salting, kneading, packing and pounding. The jar on the right would have been the better choice.

 

 

[Note: For reasons understandable only to the software gods, the remainder of this post is actually @FauxPas, quoting me. We don't know how or why it happened, but the quotes don't make sense otherwise. -- Smithy]

 

The planets finally aligned for me this year, and I was able to snag two sets of the fermentation lids while they were on end-of-season clearance. Still pricey (to my admittedly minimalist eye) but I expect to use them for many years.

 

On 1/24/2024 at 10:07 PM, Smithy said:

Actually, I got 2 sets: one for wide-mouth jars and one for regular-mouth jars, but one set hasn't come. What I like about this is that it has vented lids as well as weights. We'll see how it goes! The acacia pounder is quite gratifying to use. 🙂

 

I just recently bought the same stuff!

 

On 1/24/2024 at 10:07 PM, Smithy said:

It's easy to underestimate the value of that pounder, though. The jar on the left contains half a head of red cabbage after shredding, salting, kneading, packing and pounding. The jar on the right would have been the better choice.

 

I did a fermentation class not long ago. The guideline we were given is to use approx 1 kg of cabbage (or whatever combination of stuff) per 1 L canning jar. That's what we used in that class and almost all of it fit into the jar using a tamper with moderate force. 

 

We tasted ferments that ranged from 1% to 5% concentrations of salt and almost all of us preferred the taste in the range of 1.5 to 2.5%. Class instructor said that was almost always the preferred range in her classes. 

 

She also suggested using coarse cheese mesh instead of weights and if you have canning jars with a bit of a shoulder, they work really well to keep the cabbage submerged in the brine. Like this: 

https://glengarrycheesemaking.on.ca/collections/cheese-making-accessories

 

She cut the mesh into 9cm circles which click into place in the neck of the standard 1L canning jar. 

 

 

Edited May 22 by Smithy
Added note explaining tangled quote (log)

[Smithy]

7 minutes ago, FauxPas said:

 

I did a fermentation class not long ago. The guideline we were given is to use approx 1 kg of cabbage (or whatever combination of stuff) per 1 L canning jar. That's what we used in that class and almost all of it fit into the jar using a tamper with moderate force. 

 

We tasted ferments that ranged from 1% to 5% concentrations of salt and almost all of us preferred the taste in the range of 1.5 to 2.5%. Class instructor said that was almost always the preferred range in her classes. 

 

She also suggested using coarse cheese mesh instead of weights and if you have canning jars with a bit of a shoulder, they work really well to keep the cabbage submerged in the brine. Like this: 

https://glengarrycheesemaking.on.ca/collections/cheese-making-accessories

 

She cut the mesh into 9cm circles which click into place in the neck of the standard 1L canning jar. 

 

 

 

Thanks for that information. I'd never heard of cheese mesh before! I'll look into it, because the jars' shoulders are a problem. I also appreciate the proportions and the quantity expectation. I had 359g of cabbage. That's pretty much proportional to your 1 kg per 1L jar. I'm surprised the fermentation would work with such a low percentage of salt. I thought more would be needed to suppress the bad bugs.

 

 

[FauxPas]

  

19 minutes ago, Smithy said:

I'm surprised the fermentation would work with such a low percentage of salt. I thought more would be needed to suppress the bad bugs.

 

 

These quotes are from The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Katz: 

 

"In most ferments, including vegetables, salting can be done to taste, without any need for measuring. In other cases, more specific salt proportions may be required for safety and effective preservation. For instance, with curing meats, adequate salt and curing salts are necessary for safety. And in ferments such as miso and soy sauce, which age for many months or even years, insufficient salt can lead to putrefaction rather than controlled fermentation."

 

"Like chopping, salt is not absolutely necessary for fermentation. Some people believe (I do not) that vegetables fermented without salt contain more beneficial bacteria than those fermented with salt. And some people have been given a medical directive to avoid salt. Vegetables can be fermented without any salt. But with even a modest amount of salt, ferments generally taste better, maintain a more pleasing texture, and have the potential to ferment longer and more slowly."

Edited January 25 by FauxPas (log)

[FauxPas]

@Smithy, this is more on salt and fermentation from Kirsten Shockey's book Fiery Ferments:

 

"The first purpose of salt in fermentation is to give the lactic-acid bacteria the advantage they need over the forces that rot. Salt isn’t the preservative — the acid created by fermentation is what keeps everything safe (that’s right, there’s no benefit to tossing in a little extra salt for good measure). However, a correct saline environment, while not inhibiting the lactobacilli, makes it uncomfortable for many other kinds of bacteria to set up housekeeping and reproduce. Salt also affects the cells of vegetables. It hardens the pectins (keeping the veggies crisp) and draws out the vegetable’s water, which becomes the brine."

"Salt inhibits the yeasts that break down sugars into alcohol (not the yummy kind) instead of lactic acid. A mere 0.8 percent ratio of salt weight to vegetable weight will prevent the type of decomposition you don’t want. Standard ferments use anywhere from 1.5 to 3 percent, and sometimes more for commercial products. The recipes in this book tend to stay in the 1.5 to 2 percent range."

 

 

Forgot to add this bit, which applies to hotter climates! 

 

"Another purpose of the salt is to keep fermentation moving along at a steady rate by slowing it down a bit. This can be particularly important when fermenting in hot climates, to keep the process and the flavors in check. If you live in a warm environment (and it is warm inside as well as out), you may have to add a bit more salt, bringing the ratio up to 2 to 3 percent by weight."

Edited January 25 by FauxPas
to add warm weather detail (log)

[Tropicalsenior]

55 minutes ago, Smithy said:

I'd never heard of cheese mesh

I've only seen cheesecloth  once in the 30 years that I've lived in Costa Rica so I've had to find substitutes. My first one was fine curtain material and then in an upholstery fabric shop I found the fine, non-woven material that they used to put as dust covers under sofas. It's cheap and it works beautifully. Now, I have been using the reusable non-woven shopping bags, cut up. Moisture and air pass through but it does a great job of retaining the solids. It's great for straining yogurt so it should make a great topper for jars.

[lindag]

There are extra-wide-mouth canning jars available, Ball is one brand but there are others.  It might take a bit of searching to find them.

[Smithy]

1 hour ago, lindag said:

There are extra-wide-mouth canning jars available, Ball is one brand but there are others.  It might take a bit of searching to find them.

 

Thanks. I'm happy with either regular or wide mouth jars. I had some giant jars, but gave most to my great-niece.

[FauxPas]

4 hours ago, Tropicalsenior said:

I've only seen cheesecloth  once in the 30 years that I've lived in Costa Rica so I've had to find substitutes.

 

Not to take away from your suggestions, but the cheese mesh I was referring to above is a fairly hard plastic used in cheese making, not the finer and more cloth-like cheesecloth. The coarse version of the mesh has 4mm square openings. It is food safe and holds its shape pretty well but is still bendable, so it can be inserted into the neck of a canning jar and will stay in place, holding the cabbage or whatever under the brine. I think it's also called a cheese mat. 

 

Like this (image from Glengarry Cheese): 

 

[Tropicalsenior]

13 minutes ago, FauxPas said:

was referring to above is a fairly hard plastic used in cheese making

Thank you, that does make sense. I Googled it and everything that I could find pointed to something that resembled cheesecloth.

[Laurentius]

50 minutes ago, FauxPas said:

holding the cabbage or whatever under the brine.

Why not just use a weight?

[liuzhou]

I don't know if this will help anyone but...

 

Asian markets may be sources of 豆腐布 (dòu fu bù) which means tofu cloth and is really cheesecloth. Took me years to find that out.

 

18 minutes ago, Laurentius said:

Why not just use a weight?

 

Standard practice round these parts.

 

 

Edited January 26 by liuzhou (log)

[Laurentius]

56 minutes ago, liuzhou said:

Standard practice round these parts.

 

.. and you'd likely still need to weigh down a sheet of mesh.  Every crock of kraut or bin of grape must I've fermented gives off enough CO2 to lift any light covering.

[Senior Sea Kayaker]

For me the salt concentration (expressed as a weight volume ratio) would be 3% at the low end for kimchi or saurkraut to 5% for things like pickling cucumbers, hot peppers, green beans or garlic scapes.

Another option for a makeshift airlock, ala Alton Brown, is to use a food grade plastic bag, such as a zip lock or in my case a milk bag, filled with brine and clamped shut. Set in a plate in case of any overflow.

 

 

[chromedome]

I use salt at 2% of cabbage weight in my sauerkraut. I generally make a middlin' batch that half-fills a food-grade plastic bucket, and we already have lids with holes for airlocks because of my GF's sporadic winemaking hobby, so those are the easy option for me. I weight mine with a plate that leaves just a smidge of space around each side (I have a specific plate for that bucket) and set a mason jar full of water on top with a plastic screw-on lid, lest it tip into the brine at some point and a conventional ring/lid get rusted.
 

9 hours ago, Laurentius said:

 

.. and you'd likely still need to weigh down a sheet of mesh.  Every crock of kraut or bin of grape must I've fermented gives off enough CO2 to lift any light covering.

 

C02 (or any other gas) would pass through a mesh with a 4mm grid, no?

[FauxPas]

15 hours ago, Laurentius said:

Why not just use a weight?

 

You can! But the cheese mesh works really well and is very thin. 

[FauxPas]

14 hours ago, Laurentius said:

 

.. and you'd likely still need to weigh down a sheet of mesh.  Every crock of kraut or bin of grape must I've fermented gives off enough CO2 to lift any light covering.

 

The mesh is cut to fit into the neck of the jar. It stayed in place beautifully and needed nothing else. It is light in weight and thin but it's very strong. 

 

But you are free to use whatever you like.