kitchen of rot

[Spiral Leana]

so I went and volunteered for 10 days at a meditaiton center that I have taken classes at in the past...I was the "kitchen manager" in charge of 5-6 other volunteers and cooking for about 50 people

when I was organizing the fridge i noticed a large mason jar of kimchee that was obviously a personal item of one of the workers....anyway long story short...for a meditator that does not believe in gurus....this young 25 year old forager is my new raw guru....his kimchee was amazing and after much encouragement from "the management" he went on to dazzle us with his buckets of fermentation all week long

the next day he prepared a nectarine, apple, raisin, sunflower seed, lime with tumeric, cinnamon, fennel, garlic, ginger....and I don't know what else...let it sit for about 2.5 days submerged in salt water and it was the most amazing thing I have ever eaten....not exaggerating

we did beets with dill and fennel

and i even did my own bucket with cabbage, cucumber, green apples, coconut and a curry/rosemary spice

we then had a new woman come on the last day who taught us that russians will often take the beet juice and cure garlic in it leaving it sometimes for months

anyway this is a revolution for me with raw and I wanted to share
the beets...try the beets

[Stina]

Neat! Did he weigh it down from the top? I'm feeling sorry for myself as I've had several bad batches of sauerkraut :mad:

[Lilly the Naiad]

My kimchee smelled so bad I tossed it. Just the name reminds of me the smell of sulphur and feeling of headache, it was just awful.

Any chance you could tell us his recipe?

[Spiral Leana]

I wasn't there for the kimchee prep so I don't know.....but he did weigh it down just filled a mason jar with water and sat it on a plate on top to keep everything submerged

[Bethanie]

Please tell me how can i go about doing this?
I would love to do it with beets so please could you, would you work me through how to do:D
I'm so glad you were there.
B.

[Zuri]

I'd love to know as well, minus the beets.

[Spiral Leana]

beets first as I am at work and it is really simple

we peeled and cut the beets

into halves and then cut "slices" from the halves about a 1/4 inch thick???? any shape would be fine but it is a nice texture if they are about like apple slices

put em in a bucket.....an food grade plastic bucket that bulk food came in

dissolved some salt (to taste but also as a brine) not very much but probably one or two teaspoons per quart of water

enough wter to cover the beets

added very thinly sliced white onion, some dill and some fennel

covered with a plate, a heavy water filled jar on top of the plate, a towel on top of the jar that covered the whole top surface to keep dust etc out

sat the bucket on a shelf next to the stove and checked on it daily

in about 2.5 days they were PERFECT DELICIOUS PURTY

we jarred em up and stuck em in the fridge...

and Salty!!!!! all week I kept getting so thirsty forgetting I was taking in all that salt so realize that!

the color is amazing...and like I said when the beets were done we saved some of the juice and started some garlic soaking in that! I wasn't around for the tasting but you leave that longer a week to 2 months???!!!

good luck...this is very new to me too.....start simple and learn a good flavor palate.

[exurb]

THANKS SO MUCH SPIRAL LEANA!

I am being adventurous with fermentation for the first time this year, I'm doing a bunch of sauerkraut with some organic cabbage I have.

I'd been wondering about fermenting other veggies, and I will try your beets! By fennel is that fennel seed, or raw fennel that's sort of like celery?

Do you know how long they will keep after in the fridge? (we've got quite a few beets on hand).

BTW on the saltiness, I've heard you can rinse stuff before eating to get rid of some of the salt. I am told you can't skimp on the salt while doing the fermentation or it won't turn out.