Fermented carrots with caraway and honey (pictured above)
The smaller you cut your vegetables, the quicker they will pickle (both when you use vinegar and brine). This makes for a great opportunity to practise your julienning skills. Otherwise, there are peelers or spiralisers that will help you do the job much quicker – it’s totally up to you. These are great used in the same way you would kraut, but I also like cooking with them – I fry onions, then mushroom, chestnuts and, finally, these carrots (finely chopped), and use as a stuffing for dumplings.
Prep 20 min
Cook 5 min
Ferment 2-3 days
Makes 1 litre
500g carrots (rainbow or regular)
1 tsp caraway seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
1 tbsp honey
12g sea salt
If your carrots are organic, don’t bother peeling them, just scrub them well. If you are cutting the carrots by hand, cut a small “cheek” off each one, so they stay stable on the board. Slice as thinly as you can lengthways, then cut each sliver on the diagonal into matchsticks (stack them to make things quicker).
Heat 600ml water, the spices, honey and salt in a pan, to dissolve the latter. Leave to cool a little, so it is no longer hot but still very warm. Pack the carrots into a sterilised jar, then pour the warm brine over them, making sure they are fully submerged and that none are sticking out, and seal with the lid. Leave the carrots in a warm kitchen for two to three days. When bubbles appear, start tasting the carrots and, once they’re sour enough for your taste, store them in the fridge.
Cauliflower leaves and stalks with beetroot
Fermenting cauliflower leaves with some beetroot makes a wonderful, fresh pickle and, if you slice the leaves thinly, it won’t take that long to ferment.
Add any spices you like – coriander seeds work well instead of allspice, as do pink peppercorns. This is a good opportunity to finish off scrag-ends of spice boxes. I am putting more salt into this brine than I normally do, because of the beetroot – it has a tendency to make the brine very viscous, and I find more salt in the brine wards against that. I like to serve these as a pickle. Thinly slice some onion, mix with the pickle, drizzle over some nutty oil (sesame or cold-pressed sunflower) and maybe top with some toasted sesame or sunflower seeds. They look great in tacos or Middle Eastern flatbreads and a grilled meat kebab situation.
Prep 20 min
Cook 5 min
Ferment 2-3 days
Makes 1 litre
150-200g cauliflower outer leaves and stalk
150g beetroot
20g sea salt
½ tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp allspice
2 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
Slice the thicker cauliflower leaves and stalks as thinly as you can, but leave the tender leaves and bigger leaf tips whole. If you are using organic beetroot, don’t peel it – just wash or scrub it well. Otherwise, peel the beetroot, cut it in half and then into thin wedges (for a medium beetroot, you should get about eight wedges).
Heat 700ml water in a pan with the salt, sugar, allspice, garlic and any other flavourings you like, until the sugar and salt dissolve. Leave it to cool to room temperature – this will also give the brine time to infuse.
Put the vegetables into a jar – first the sliced cauliflower, then the beets, then the whole leaves – and pour over the brine, making sure all of the vegetables are fully submerged. If you want to speed up the process even more, add a little splash of sauerkraut brine, if you have some.
Cover with a lid and gently tip upside down and back again – watch the pink hues saturate the brine beautifully. You will not need to do strict “burping” (or opening) of the jar, because this is not a particularly explosive pickle; do check on it from time to time, though. Leave to stand in your kitchen, somewhere warmish with no draughts, for two to three days.
You will see signs of fermentation – little bubbles will appear, especially if you gently stir the jar. Once this happens, fish out a piece each of cauliflower and beetroot to taste; they should be sour and easier to bite into. Once you’re satisfied with its sourness and texture (in winter, this can take up to a week for me to be happy), put the pickle in the fridge, where it will keep for about three months.
Fermented mirepoix
A few years ago, I went to a restaurant near Bristol called The Ethicurean. After a mind-blowing meal, the chefs gave me a jar of their fermented mirepoix vegetables, and this ferment is inspired by that very jar. It’s great used as a pickle, but I love cooking with it, too – fried in a little oil, it makes the most fantastic base for a broth or soup.
Prep 15 min
Cook 5 min
Ferment 2-3 days
Makes 2 litres
2 carrots (150g)
2 small parsnips (200g)
2 small celery sticks and leaves (150g)
10g sea salt
If you’re using organic carrots and parsnips, don’t bother peeling them and just scrub them clean, then dice everything very small (or grate on the rough side of a grater, though this will make for a sloppier end result).
Put the salt and 500ml water in a pan, heat, stirring, until the salt dissolves, then leave to cool to room temperature. Put the vegetables into a sterilised jar and pour the brine over the top. Close the lid and leave in your kitchen for a couple of days. Once you are happy with the flavour, store in the fridge for three months or so.
Chillies and sliced garlic
You can also ferment cooked vegetables. My mum, for instance, blanches and presses aubergines before fermenting them; people in Bessarabia cook onion and carrots, then stuff them into bell peppers with some cabbage, all of it fermented in brine, to make a delicious pickle. Here, we are grilling chilies, to get rid of their skins, and also to make the process faster.
Prep 20 min
Cook 10 min
Ferment 2-3 days
Makes 400ml
20 chillies (I used red and jalapeños)
5 large garlic cloves, peeled and sliced as thinly as possible
Sea salt (2% of the total weight of veg)
1 tsp sugar (optional)
Heat the oven grill, then cook your chillies under it, turning occasionally, for five to 10 minutes, until the skins are blackened and blistered. Transfer to a bowl and cover so the steam can’t escape.
After about five minutes, the skins should be easy to pull off. Peel the chillies, remove the stalks and seeds, too, then chop the flesh into a pulp and put in a bowl that you’ve already weighed. If any liquid came out of the peppers while they were grilling and resting, add that to the bowl, too. Stir in the garlic and weigh the contents of the bowl. Add 2% of the total weight in salt, add the sugar (if using) and stir to combine.
Leave to ferment in your kitchen for two to three days. The peppers will release their own liquid, creating a brine that will go bubbly and, after three days, the garlic should taste pickled rather than raw. If there doesn’t seem to be enough brine to cover the pulp, make a little 2% brine and pour it in.
When ready, serve the pickle as it is, or blitz the mix into a spiky, sour condiment that is good to use on anything you would normally serve with a chilli sauce. Keep in the fridge for two months.
Olia Hercules is a food writer and author of Summer Kitchens: Recipes and Reminiscences from Every Corner of Ukraine (Bloomsbury, £26). To order a copy for £22.62, go to guardianbookshop.com
