2013: The Year of (More) Fermentation

Happy 2013, everyone! Lots of experimentation has been going on in these parts, and most of them have to do with food. Of course. I made a beautiful watermelon radish water kimchi, a lightly fermented kimchi that only sits out for a day or two before going into the refrigerator. You eat both the radish and you drink the brine, but I am loving the way this full jar looks on my countertop. I had watermelon kimchi at FuseBox in West Oakland, and since my CSA box is full of radishes, I decided to attempt this kimchi myself.  There's a crock full of cabbage kimchi bubbling away, too, and it will probably go fast because anything spicy is in high demand during our (relatively) cold winter. (I know you snow folks laugh, but a high of 52 degrees F? Brrrrrrrr! This is the Bay Area - I didn't sign up for that!)

Sitting next to my kimchi is what I lovingly refer to as my Kitchen Sheik. It's the start of a kombucha SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast - sounds appetizing, eh?). I was drinking one of those $3 bottles of raw kombucha when I got really irritated that just paid $3 for something that I could make myself. My mom and grandmother used to make kombucha, and I kid you not, but it started to turn my mother's hair black again! Although this is not why I like it, I find the tangy taste addictive, I wouldn't mind it if  my gray hair ceased to exist. So I dumped half of my kombucha drink into some cooled jasmine tea. It's almost been a week, and it smells right. I'll have to add some more tea and sugar to feed it so it can grow stronger.

I wonder if my taste for kombucha has to do with the yoga DVDs I've been using? Or is this like Cabbage Patch Kids, where at first I think they're ugly, but then because all the cool kids have it I want one too?

An interesting side note is that there is kombucha beer from Unity Vibration in Michigan. I've had the ginger beer, gluten free by the way, twice! Both times, it hit the spot. It's a good beer to pair with Asian food, especially spicy food.

Since all my fermentation projects take weeks, I made some lemon cauliflower pickles (recipe here) for some instant gratification. They're lemony, pickley, and crisp!

Beet roasting was also on today's agenda. There's nothing revolutionary here, but I do love the chioggia beet's style.

We have so much beer brewing here it is ridiculous. By the end of today, we will have 20-gallons of beer in carboys. 2 of those carboys are going to be tied up for a year since the boy is experimenting with sour beers. The other 2 carboys house a black lager and a Stone 12.12.12. Stone brewery is awesome in that they post their special beer recipes for free, so when we were wowed by a glass of 12.12.12 on draft, we immediately bought the ingredients and made some for ourselves. I think our version is going to taste more like cloves, so it will be a winter beer.

I have developed a perplexing craving for red meat, specifically burgers. Could it be the Cabbage Patch effect again since gourmet burger joints are the food media's darling? I've dragged the boy to burgers at the FiveTen truck, Elevation 66, Hopscotch, Burger Bar, True Burger, and Eureka! Burger.  I also had a kick ass hanger steak (they didn't even ask me how I wanted it - it came out deliciously rare) at Mill Valley Beerworks. Since I've been traditionally a lean meat and veggie person, I worry that I have a brain tumor because it's such a radical shift from what I normally crave. If I start becoming good at picking up different languages and I have a sudden love of raw onions, I'll know something bad is up.

As the Garden Grows

The radishes are ready, but not much else. We have pea and bean shoots galore, but no signs of blossoms yet. I told the boy that if we really want a reliable crop of greens, we should just plant 20 different types of radishes since they seem foolproof.

Not only are radish roots delicious sliced thin and spread atop a baguette slathered with sweet butter, but the greens make a mean pesto. Using this recipe, I made a pesto that went into an orzo, roasted tomato, and roasted gypsy pepper salad. Subsequent radish greens are going to get an Indian saag treatment.

For our winter garden, I want to start planting spinach, although I'm a little worried that the leaf miners that are attaching my beet greens are going to go nuts over the spinach. Oh well, only one way to find out.

Remember the miso pickle experiment? No? Well I didn't remember it either until I was trying to make space in our refrigerator. These have been doing the pickling/fermenting thing since August 2010, and I was going to throw them out until I read that several miso pickles sit for years. So, I rinsed one off and ate it. 20 minutes later, I still didn't feel ill, so I ate another one. And another one. And a few more. They are so good, albeit really salty. I'm going to serve the rest of them with some egg noodles or soba to dilute the saltiness. Next time, I think I can indulge in them after a few months, like my original intention.

No, this does not belong in a wide mouth Gatorade bottle

Another forgotten kitchen experiment, one I was less concerned about killing us, was this lemon zest infused vodka. My fear with this concoction was that since I never strained out the lemon zest after a few months, I was going to end up with lemon extract. Luckily, my laziness and forgetfulness paid off and this stuff is lovely! It's a good thing, too, since I have 4-bottles worth of lemon vodka. Between the vodka and all the homemade beer, we're doing our best to not only make pickles, but to pickle ourselves. (Mom, I jest!)

I got confirmation from our chicken lady that we have overwhelmed her with spent grains, so she is crying uncle. Today's task is to list our grains on Freecycle in the hopes that someone will take them off of our hands. I hate to put all that stuff in the garbage since it can get a second life, but because spent grains sour quickly and need to be chilled, they end up filling our freezer in a hurry. When it is summer and I don't have room for my ice cream maker, things get ugly around here.

For all of those people who mistakenly thought subscribing to my blog would lead to many pictures of cats and instead have to skim posts about food, I'm sorry. But, I'll throw you a bone: here's Greaseball and Fifty acting like they love each other. What you don't see are the hissing fights that ensue when Fifty, troll of the 2nd cat tree shelf, won't let Greaseball pass her shelf to get the 3rd food shelf. It's not pretty.

Thursdays are for Pickles and Kimchi

After starting off the morning taste testing yet another eggs Benedict , this time from Jimmy Beans  (I had the Eggs Blackstone and it was not stellar, but solid), I did my produce shopping, and then spent the rest of the afternoon making pickles and kimchi.

This afternoon's batch of kimchi features daikon, carrots, and of course Napa cabbage as the stars, and loads of garlic, ginger, green onions, fish sauce, and tiny dried shrimp as the supporting actors. Also, there was a healthy dose of chili powder. I'm almost through with my package of arbol chlii powder, and once that is gone, I'll treat myself to the real deal chili flakes from the Korean market. Although, I do like the idea of sourcing some California grown dried chili flakes, so I'll take a look around before loading up my cart at the Korean market.

I also put together another batch of Mexican carrot pickles, this time with more garlic cloves. Surprisingly, until my friend popped one of the pickled garlic cloves into her mouth, I never had the guts to try them myself. I imagined that they'd be overwhelmingly pungent and that people would part like the Red Sea when I approached. However, to my delight, they had a crunchy texture and the garlic "bite" was mild. Yum! I won't be pushing the garlic cloves to the side of my plate anymore.

One little trick I tried was to soak my whole garlic cloves for a couple of hours before taking off their papery husk. When I cook with garlic, I usually smash them with the side of my knife and then remove their husk, but for the pickles I wanted them to be intact and pretty. It was so much easier to peel the garlic after their water bath!

Another batch of Japanese cucumber salt pickles are on the counter, too, in my cool pickle press. I'll probably mix them with some dry farmed Early Girl tomatoes tomorrow.

One impulse buy were these gobo (burdock) roots. They were advertised as organic, and since I find so many Asian vegetables hard to find in organic form (lotus root, for example), I pounced on them. I'm going to make a gobo root kinpira tonight, using the same technique and marinade as my lotus root kinpira.

When I went to feed my pet worms all the vegetable food scraps, I happened upon the worm invader. It's stupid, but I am terrified of this slimy salamander. I'm getting better - I can take a picture of it now instead of slamming the lid on the worm bin and screaming for the boy to feed the worms.

Mingus remains unimpressed with this afternoon's activities, but he's a dog. What does he know? (He knows that he doesn't like kimchi or pickles. You can bet if I was making a batch of pork potstickers he'd be sitting outside of the kitchen sniffing the air with a happy face.)

Mexican Carrot Pickle Recipe

The Mexican pickle experiment is ready to eat, and I'm pleased to report that they were every bit as addictive as I dreamed: slightly spicy, slightly tangy, and crunchy! The tang comes from fermenting the pickles for at least week, so these have a different taste than those carrot pickles served alongside tacos because those carrot pickles get their tang from vinegar (acetic acid from the vinegar vs. lactic acid from wild fermentation). However, don't be scared to make these yourself because they are really simple.

Mexican Carrot Pickle Recipe
makes a pound of pickles


1 pound (16 ounces) of carrots, quartered lengthwise and cut into 3-inch sticks
1 or 2 jalapenos or serrano chiles, sliced crosswise into 1/8-inch rounds
8 garlic cloves, halved
1 teaspoon whole peppercorns
3/8 ounce salt, do not use salt with iodine

Gently toss all ingredients in a bowl. Loosely cover and let sit on the counter for at least 4 hours and up to 24 hours. Transfer the carrot mixture and the resulting brine into a crock or pickle press and weigh it down. If there is not enough brine to cover the pickles, dissolve 1 teaspoon of salt with one cup of water and pour enough of this brine over the to to submerge everything.

Keep the crock in a cool room. After a few days, you can start sampling the carrots to taste how the flavor is developing. I refrigerate my pickles once they have a strong tang, about one week. The longer you let the carrot mixture ferment, the stronger the flavors.

For more carrot pickle making pictures, click here.

Enjoy your pickles! You can adjust the seasonings quite a bit. I'm a ginger fiend, so next time I'm going to add grated ginger and some curry powder. Mmmm, curry pickles!

Pickle Making Made Easier

The back story: I'm watching Hoarders on DVD, and every time I watch the show, not only do I become increasingly agitated about two boxes of electronics the boy stores in our office (they must go!), but I have the urge to do some crazy cleaning and purging. Like, take-apart-the-range hood-and-clean-it-at-midnight crazy.

So, I find myself at Ichiban Kan because they sell Mr. Clean Eraser knock-offs and microfiber cloths crazy cheap, and what do I find? Japanese pickle making containers! For $1.75 each! I've never seen such containers, but judging by the animation on the label (imagine talking cucumber slices and a talking salt shaker), these are for Japanese pickled cucumbers.

Although I prefer to ferment in glass or ceramic, these were too darn cool to pass up. And because I seem to be learning nothing by my nightly prescription of Hoarders, I bought the last two pickle makers in stock. But, unlike a hoarder, I'm using them immediately! See? You all are my witnesses! I am not becoming a hoarder.


These are so dang cool. I can hardily stand it. So tidy!

If these Mexican carrot pickles turn out any good, I'll post the recipe.

And More Food

Roasted tomatoes give lackluster tomatoes a chance to live up to their full potential. A basket of cherry tomatoes followed me home, which usually happens after a trip to Monterey Market. These tomatoes, from Fully Belly Farm, were a little watered down, probably due to the unusually cool summer we're experiencing here.


I have a fear that my two tomato plants are going to produce lackluster tomatoes because the fog is ever present this summer. At least those tomatoes can be saved with some slow and low heat (250 °F), a sprinkling of salt and pepper, dried oregano, and some olive oil. I like to throw garlic cloves, skin on, into the mix since roasted garlic is better than candy.


I take the tomatoes out of the oven after 3 hours. If you don't snack on all of them, you can use these for a simple angel hair pasta dish with basil and Parmesan cheese.



Usually, the oven stays idle during the summer, but it's cold here! I even roasted strawberries tossed with a dash of balsamic vinegar and a scant amount of sugar. They went really well with pork chops.

Cool weather also means that I get a hankering for spicy food. I just nabbed a copy of Fushia Dunlop's Land of Plenty, which brought back memories of my bike tour in Chengdu. Sichuan food is so different than the Cantonese food I cut my teeth on, so having Dunlop's help to demystify the techniques and spices has made for fun bonding time with my wok. The kung pao chicken recipe is worth the price of the book!

Refrigerator pickles are also happening in these parts. I made a huge batch of Vietnamese style daikon pickles, which is nothing more than a rice vinegar and sugar marinade. Salting the matchsticked daikon and letting it drain for at least 2 hours made the resulting pickles nice and crisp.

Nothing interesting is on the needles or the hook. I'm having to dig deep to finish up a super secret knitting project because reading and cooking are my preferred "I just to need to relax" projects.

Hopefully, I'll have news of ripened tomatoes the next time I blog.

Last Pickle Standing!

I just ate one more of my precious pickles, leaving one more left. Now that they have been steeping with all those serrano chiles for months, these pickles will make you cry. I usually take one bite, the suck my breath in and flap my arms a bit before I can continue to the next bite. And the sick part is that I don't think they are hot enough - the next batch is going to steep with some habaneros.

These pickles were lovingly crafted in my Harsch crock. If you like fermenting things, well this is the vessel for you! The downfall of the fermentation arts is that you can end up cultivating the wrong thing. For example, if you read traditional instructions for making sauerkraut (and doesn't everyone?), you'll read about the importance of skimming the white, mucousy scum off the top of the bucket, this same bucket which is sealed off from its environment by an old pillowcase. No thank you! I have pets! I spend enough time cleaning up myserious mucousy scum! This is where the Harsch comes in - it has a water gutter that prevents outside air from contaminating your goods.

One of these days, I'm going to throw a fermentation party. We'll drink beer and wine! We'll eat yogurt, sourdough bread, sauerkraut, and pickles! We'll feast and give offerings to the fermentation gods!