Sauerkraut Recipe

[Troy McClure]

This is the standard sauerkraut recipe from Nourishing Traditions:

1 med cabbage, cored and shredded
1 T caraway seeds
1 T sea salt
4 T whey (or an additional 1 T salt)

Mix ingredients. Pound with wooden pounder or meat hammer for 10 min. to release juices. Place in mason jar and press down firmly with pounder until juices come to the top of the cabbage. The top of the cabbage should be at least 1 inch below the top of the jar. Cover tightly and keep at room temp for about 3 days before storing in fridge. Can be eaten immediately, but improves with age.

My Tip: Make sure the cabbage is as fresh as possible, and preferably organic.

Anyone care to try?

[ivana]

Oh this one is great, I love it. My mother is making it every winter and we all enjoy it. The juice that is created is a great, it is full with vitamin C and great for hangovers

[Invincible]

Do I have to use whey? Where do you get this stuff?

[shelley]

the Nourishing Traditions cookbook teaches you how to make Whey, which is basically the liquid from sour, separated milk. If you don't want to go thru this hassle, you can use a culture starter. I just posted one recommendation for a culture starter so check that one out.

[harmony]

Oh, I love saurkraut. I am definately going to try this out. Thanks so much for the recipe.

[Troy McClure]

[Invincible]

I'm a bit confused why starter culture or whey is needed.

I spoke to an old Austrian lady and she said that they always made traditional sauerkraut with just sea salt.

Isn't this going to be the same thing?

[shelley]

Yep, it's not mandatory at all, it just hastens the process. Like the recipe says, you can just use a little more salt.

[Troy McClure]

OK I just made my first batch of sauerkraut. Yay!

I used red cabbage and 2 tablespoons sea-salt instead of using whey.

After 10 minutes of pounding there wasn't enough juice to come to the surface, so I just added some water. Either the cabbage was too dry to begin with, or I didn't pound long & hard enough.

I also used 3 tablespoons of starter culture.

I can't wait to see how this turns out!

Has anyone else made a batch yet???

[spo1977]

bump

[cjb]

Hey, I just finished making some sauerkraut. I've been reading several different recipes lately so I didn't exactly follow just one. Although I did use a very handy dandy tip I read on Rebecca Wood's website. (She also has a raw sauerkraut recipe on the site, rwood.com, I believe) I made the cortido once and had such a hard time finding an appropriate sized weight to put on top. She suggests a plastic bag filled with water. It works brilliantly. I filled a wide-mouthed mason jar with the sauerkraut to about an inch from the top, put the bottom corner of a plastic bag into the jar, filled it with water until it weighed down the kraut, and just screwed the top on over the sides of the bag to hold it in place.

Here's the recipe I used. It was based on what I had in the fridge.

1/2 head green cabbage
6 baby beets
4 small carrots
2 cloves garlic
1 T sea salt with sea veggies

I ran everything through the grater on the food processor, then put it in a bowl and pounded it until it was quite juicy. It filled one quart jar. Now I have only made sauerkraut once before and I hand chopped everything. Running it through the processor helped release more juices, I believe. Now....we'll see how it turns out in a week.[/url]

[shelley]

Sounds yummy! I still haven't used beets in my kraut, and I should! So far I just keep it to cabbage, red onions, carrots, garlic and basil and of course salt.

[cjb]

I just got Nourishing Traditions for my b-day and according to that, one shouldn't use grated beets (chopped beets okay) in kraut because they ferment too quickly. Of course I read that the day after I made the kraut. It explained why there was pink juice all over my kitchen floor the other day! The recipe I read on rwood.com did call for grated beets, though. I just added a bit more salt water to replace what leaked out, and the kraut turned out okay, I think. I had some today.

[shelley]

oh now that's interesting! maybe that's why I never went for the beets and then forgot! LOL!

[spo1977]

I tried making sauerkraut once and I noticed that it was difficult to get enough juice. Did adding water work?

Does a layer of mold form above the water when making sauerkraut?