exclusively Skirt in the Kitchen
I don’t want it to be Christmas-not yet-but I have to ferment cabbage for Christmas kraut if I want to cook with it by then. This is the easy method even though I’m jazzing it up with spices and other fruit to give it the Christmas swag that I like.
Cut green cabbage and fill it half-full in sterilized canning jars.
Cut the cores out of Granny Smith apples and any brown/bad spots on the apples skins. Grate and put half an apple in a jar over the cabbage; 1/2 cup grated apple. The green skin of the apples will be nice for this, complimenting the kraut and adding some natural sweetness, so don’t peel the apples.
Fill the remainder with more cabbage, then pack firmly with a bulky end of a sterilized utensil.
Add a handful of frozen cranberries. When you pack the cabbage, the cranberries will not mush since they are frozen.
Add a combination of spices and seasonings for each jar of cabbage to ferment, 1/4 teaspoon or so, to each jar. Herbes de Provence is a mixture of dried herbs consisting of savory, marjoram, rosemary, thyme, oregano, and lavender. You must add a teaspoon of pickling salt, specifically for canning, as well as a teaspoon of sugar. I add golden raisins, a small pinch of ground cloves, 1 anise star, and a pinch of lemon pepper.
I also add the sweet pineapple-flavored red blooms of pineapple sage.
When everything has been added to preserve in a water bath canner, or be refrigerated if not canning, fill boiling hot water to the top of the jars, leaving an inch head space. Carefully wedge a sterilized butter knife down the sides and gently move the contents to release any air pockets. Slowly push ingredients back into jars, at the top, and wipe rims with a clean kitchen cloth. Finger-tight, not very tight, place sterilized canning lids and rings onto jars, then dunk and let set in boiling canning water covered with a lid for 20 minutes to preserve.
When jars have cooled and center of lids have sealed flat, tighten rings and store the preserves. Allow 1 to 2 months to ferment.
This will be good for meats as part of a marinade ingredient and with other dishes as well as in certain casseroles that call for potatoes. Its use is universal, the different things you can do with this after it’s been fermented, especially if it’s too strong to eat by itself according to individual preference.
can and seal
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