What to do with that jar of homemade whey that was left over from making the soft cream cheese? How about using it as an inoculant for making sauerkraut? Me thinks this is a mighty fine idea.
This way of making sauerkraut from the
Nourishing Traditions cookbook feels really accessible to me and has lip-smacking-good results. The scale and details surrounding making kraut in a large crock have always seemed a touch daunting. This one-quart kraut recipe was squeezed in during a rainy twenty minute afternoon interlude.
I used a medium sized organic cabbage and sliced it thinly. As it turns out all the pounding I did later in the process really broke it up so don't worry too much about how you slice it. I put in in a bowl with
1 tablespoon of carraway seeds
1 tablespoon of sea salt
4 tablespoons of homemade whey
and used my handy dandy pounding implement to punch down the mixture for ten minutes to get all the juicy goodness out. I used a 1-inch dowel that we had lying around from mulling mojitos.
After ten minutes of pounding, the cabbage was really broken down and there was a lot of juice in the bowl. I transfered it to a quart sized mason jar and seriously packed in the cabbage, pushing it down to make sure the cabbage was covered by liquid. It is important to leave about an inch of space above the cabbage otherwise during fermentation pressure will build up and push out liquid...ooops, it happened to me!
I covered my jar tightly with a plastic lid and left it out in a warmish spot for three days. Then I sent it off to my stash in the basement, dark and cool for as long as I could stand it. The longer it stays in storage the yummier (up to 6 months) but for our household it only made it one month before we just couldn't wait any longer. It came out fantastic. Super delicious and so cheap. I still feel the whole whey fermentation thing is a little elusive in concept to me but it worked and we can't get enough.
p.s. Recent discovery - sauerkraut added to a bowl of broth or soup....ziiiing!!
I mentioned to Colin how much I love sauerkraut, and he said he's never seen me eat it. Which is true, because the only thing I ever put them on is hot dogs, which in turn I only eat about every two years or so. But I'm very excited to try some of yours in a month!
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