Homemade Sauerkraut: Like Hip Knitting for Foodies

Last night, I told a friend I'd made sauerkraut, and he responded by wrinkling his nose and saying "sauerkraut smells like grandmas." Yes, my generation of picky eaters, sauerkraut probably does smell like grandmas. Not my grandma; she smelled more like pumpkin pie and vanilla wafers, but I get it: saukerkraut is an old, weird food.

Whatever. If my generation of American twentysomethings had their way, food would only ever taste like shredded iceburg lettuce and heartburn-inducing pizza sauce. Like every old, weird food, saukerkraut has its time and place: on brautwursts, smothered in mustard, or in an electric frying pan making cozy with polish sausages. Or on reubens with corned beef and provalone. Mmm.

So sauerkraut may not be an every day food, but when you need it, there's no substitute, and there's no competing with the crunch and stinkiness of homemade sauerkraut. My mom's always been a fan of weird, old recipes that take years to make. Growing up, at any given time there was a) a glass tea jar full of echinacea roots and vodka in the basement cellar, b) several kombucha mushroom mothers hanging out in the fridge, c) a jar of sourdough starter fermenting on the countertop, and d) a crock of sauerkraut lurking by the mixer. Suffice to say, I'm used to having weird food ingredients hanging out, aging, which is exactly what sauerkraut does (for about 6 to 8 weeks).

It's really best to use a sauerkraut crock, but women have always been very inventive about making makeshift sauerkraut containers. My grandmother and her mother I'm sure at one point made a large batch of sauerkraut in an old bathtub. This year, mom got tired of wrestling with her 20 lb 5 gallon crock and made a batch of sauerkraut in an old gallon glass pickle jar. As long as it's nonporous and sealed, you can make sauerkraut in anything - anything you won't be using for the next 6-8 weeks, that is.

I took mom's large crock and traded it for a new 1 gallon crock I found at a gardening store in Ann Arbor.

5 gallon kraut crock

Once you pick a container, making sauerkraut is easy. Really easy. It has two ingredients:

fresh cabbage, chopped and sliced (not diced)

salt

That's it.

How many cabbages you'll need depends on how large a batch you'd like to make; if you want to experiment with just one gallon, find yourself one medium/large cabbage to start. I wanted to fill my 5 gallon crock more than halfway, so I got one large cabbage and one monster cabbage - roughly 4 and 8 pounds. When you prepare the cabbage, keep in mind you want it sliced, not finely chopped. I used my food processor's chopping blade to process the cabbage cut into small pie-shaped pieces.

Monster cabbage!

You want the salt that you use to be good quality - NOT iodized. I'm a big fan of kosher salt - it's fresher, more healthful and more flavorful than table salt.

Wash and dry the inside of the crock or container, then begin layering the sliced cabbage. Layer the cabbage evenly about one inch thick, then firmly tamp it down with a tamper or makeshift tamper (I used the end of a water glass). Press the layer down evenly so the cabbage is well packed, then sprinkle the entire layer generously and evenly with salt. Lay down another layer of cabbage and repeat this process with all the cabbage, making sure the layers are tightly packed. Make sure the container is still 1/3 empty - you'll need this space to seal the kraut.

Once the container is packed and salted, double line the inside of the crock with two heavy duty garbage bags, being sure the bags have plenty of room around the lip of the container. Press the garbage bags down in, then fill the cavity with water, taking care that no water makes its way into the container with the cabbage. Press the garbage bags down inside, packing the cabbage and sealing it off from the air.

Now, place the crock (carefully!) in a corner somewhere where you'll remember it enough to keep the water level up.

In six weeks, I'll drain the water out and taste it to see how tender and tart it is. If it tastes ready to me, I'll can it. If it still tastes bland and isn't tender enough, I'll let it mellow another two weeks.

To can the kraut, simply pack it into freshly cleaned, warm glass canning jars, seal the jars with clean, dry lids, then heat the jars in a pot full of water on the stove until warmed through. This process will probably take about 20 minutes. After the jars are removed, their seals should pop down as they cool. If the seals don't pop, you'll need to warm them longer.

Now your house, too, can smell like a grandma.

Venison Shepherd's Pie

Shepherd's Pie has become my default recipe for getting rid of meat and produce mustgoes. I prefer to cook with steaks and roasts, but all our meat tends to be gotten in bulk - as in whole or half pigs and cows, processed then thrown into a corner of my mom's freezer for the upcoming zombie apocalypse. We love getting meat from the Amish (or from our own hunting prowess), but it means that we have to finish off every cut of meat possible before getting more. I tend to end up with a lot of hamburger and, since R and I both got bucks last year, a lot of venison steaks.

With rifle season just a month away, I've been trying to clear some of the venison from our freezer. I've also been taking advantage of the last few weeks of in-season fresh produce from the farmer's market, so I routinely have a fridge full of random veggies.

Shepherd's Pie can really be made with just about any combination of ground meat and diced veggies; beef tends to go well with green beans, sweet corn and stewed tomatoes, but venison usually requires veggies with more potent flavor to offset the gameiness. Even the best cuts of venison are always a little gamey, which is why shepherd's pie is perfect for venison - it mixes a lot of flavors and textures, which takes care of the the wild-creature-of-the-forest taste.

On this occasion, I had a lot of fresh sweet carrots, fingerling eggplant , heirloom tomatoes and onions. I also had some purple potatoes I'd been saving, and a pile of fresh basil from my herb box.

Dishes like this require a LOT of chopping and dicing, and if I were Julia Child, I wouldn't mind. But since I'm not, and since my mommy has furnished my kitchen with matching pink Kitchen Aid appliances, I shaved off about an hour of prep time with my food processor.

Here's the recipe:

filling:

2 lbs venison steaks or ground venison

1 large sweet onion

5 medium sized sweet carrots, or 10 small

large handful fresh green beans or string beans

3 fingerling eggplant, or 2 small eggplant

1 tsp paprika

3 Tblsp kosher salt

1 tsp black pepper

1 tsp ginger

dash cinnamon

2 Tblsp fresh chopped basil

2 Tblsp flour

topping:

1 large heirloom tomato, or 2 medium

~8-10 medium purple or German butterball potatoes

3 Tblsp butter

1 Tblsp kosher salt

3 Tblsp cream

2 cups shredded mozzarella

First of all, chop the potatoes into small cubes and throw them in a pot on the stove with salt to boil. Since I usually cook with small, sweet organic potatoes, I never peel them; the skin is good for you, adds texture and it cuts down on prep time. If you're substituting with large russets, you'll probably want to peel them. Keep an eye on the potatoes and boil them until they're tender while you're working on the rest. When they're done, drain them and set them aside covered.

If you're using venison steaks, chop them finely (or put them in the food processor for a few pulses). Finely chop or food process all the veggies for the filling. If you're food processing, be sure to do the veggies one at a time in small batches to get a uniform consistency. Sift the spices all together, then add and stir into the veggie/venison mixture.

Set this mixture aside and prepare the mashed potatoes. Put the boiled, drained potatoes in a mixer or mixing bowl and mash on low with the salt, butter and cream until smooth. Press the veggie/venison mixture into the bottom of a 9x13 casserole dish, then spread the mashed potatoes evenly over top.

Slice the tomatoes into large, medium thickness slices and place evenly spaced over the mashed potatoes.

Then sprinkle on the mozzarella cheese.

Cover in tinfoil and bake at 375 for 40-50 minutes, or until bubbling and browned. Take the foil off for the last 10 minutes of cooking.