Sauerkraut is a delicious independent dish, an excellent side dish for meat, in addition, it makes a good filling for pies, pies and dumplings. But it is also a useful product, which in winter is the main source of vitamin C.
There are several ways to ferment cabbage at home. It can be chopped with a knife or a special shredder, finely chopped with a hoe with a special wooden trough, cut into quarters, halves, and sometimes this vegetable is fermented with whole heads of cabbage. The main ingredients of sauerkraut are the cabbage itself and salt, sometimes it is supplemented with various additives at will. Carrots, bay leaves, apples, cranberries, dill seeds, caraway seeds, pumpkin, beets, peppers - the list of products can be almost endless, it all depends on the tastes in each family.
It is very important which cabbage to ferment. For salting, you should choose strong, tight heads of cabbage of late varieties. In addition, the forks that you are going to salt for the winter should be juicy, crispy with white leaves. Preparing them for salting, they remove the upper leaves, darkening, rotten places, frostbitten or deformed leaves from them.
It is necessary to ferment cabbage for the winter in a certain container. In ancient times, only wooden dishes of different sizes were used for these purposes; some housewives return to this tradition even now. Many people prefer to use enamel cookware.
In this case, you should carefully inspect the inner surface of the container. It is not advisable to use containers with chipped or cracked enamel.
You can also use food grade plastic utensils. Aluminum utensils are not at all suitable for fermentation, since under the influence of lactic acid released during fermentation, aluminum is oxidized, which gives the cabbage a gray color and a metallic taste.
According to folklore, the most successful time for sourdough cabbage is considered to be the time soon after the new moon. On a growing moon, salting also turns out delicious, but with a waning moon, it is undesirable to prepare it. Experts say that cabbage cooked for the winter on a full moon turns out to be soft and too sour.
Some housewives adhere to the principle that it is best to ferment cabbage on a man's day, i.e. Monday, Tuesday or Thursday.
The most optimal proportion for salting is the ratio of 200 grams of salt to 10 kilograms of cabbage.
The most traditional addition to cabbage is carrots. It can be grated on a coarse grater, cut into slices or strips. However, it should be borne in mind that chopped carrots do not give as much juice as grated ones, therefore they are less colored when finished, while grated carrots give cabbage an appetizing reddish tint.
The addition of sour apples, lingonberries, cranberries or plums can diversify the taste of sauerkraut. Also, an interesting combination is obtained if you put salted or pickled mushrooms, bell peppers, celery into it. Perfectly complement the vigorous cabbage flavor with allspice peas, cloves, caraway seeds, horseradish.
Carefully selected heads of cabbage must be peeled, chopped or chopped. Then grind the cabbage with salt, adding the desired amount of carrots or other flavor enhancers to it. After that, it can be placed in a prepared container. It should be laid in small portions, tamping well with a wooden crush. It is very important that as little air as possible remains between the layers of cabbage. After that, clean cabbage leaves are stacked on top, on top of which you can put a clean linen napkin. Next, you need to put oppression, it can be, for example, a flat plate of a suitable size, with a two-liter jar of water installed on it.
The container with cabbage should be at room temperature for 5 or 7 days. Every day you need to collect the resulting foam and pierce the pickles with a wooden stick, reaching the very bottom. Gradually, the cabbage will acquire a sauerkraut smell, then it must be removed to a cold place. Experts consider the area of zero mark to be the ideal temperature for its storage. Keep in mind that the fermentation process should begin at a temperature of 19-22 ° C, and end at about zero.
