Fermented Potatoes

For some reason I didn’t think one could ferment potatoes because one doesn’t eat them raw. Then I challenged myself, did some research and lo and behold, lots of people are fermenting potatoes. So I thought I’d give it a try; total success! I tossed the fermented spuds in olive oil, salt and rosemary and roasted them. They were delicious, had an interesting tang and were chewy! Give it a try with any potato, including sweet potatoes.

Ingredients and Materials

3-4 potatoes of any kind or color

Brine; 2 tablespoons of salt dissolved in 2 cups of water

Sharp knife, cutting board and a glass jar with a lid. I used a regular quart-sized mason jar.

Technique

Cut the potatoes into any shape you desire - chunks or rounds, and fill your jar about 3/4 - 4/5 full. Pour the brine on top to cover by about an inch so the potatoes are submerged. They may float a little, push them down. If they stubbornly persist in floating, you can weight them down with a clean weight, some people pass a lovely stone through the dishwasher to have on hand for such eventualities.

Mold will eventually form on any vegetable that protrudes from the fermentation surface, so do pay attention to this detail. If mold does form, or a whitish scum forms on the surface of the liquid, not to worry. Rescue any floating weirdly-affected vegetable piece, wash it off if it’s still firm, and put it back in. Skim the surface, blot it with a paper towel and wipe around the top interior edge and surface of the jar to decrease the less-desirable microbe load. Give up on getting it all - you are vastly outnumbered, your job is to keep the majority underwater happy. The brine and increasing acidity will do the remaining work.

Put the jar of brined potatoes (lid on loosely to avoid large contaminants) in a cupboard out of direct sunlight. Examine it every morning, and push the vegetables underwater if things start to float. Remember that CO2 is being released during the fermentation and will create bouyancy.

Wait 3-4 days, then drain and rinse the potatoes, and use them as you would in any potato recipe. I roast them, put them in soup, etc.

Sweet, red and yellow potatoes in brine. And now we wait…

Lacto-fermented Vegetables

This is an easy and basic technique you can apply to almost any vegetable. Lacto-fermenting the vegetables turns them into a live probiotic food, preserves them so they don’t require refrigeration, and boosts their safety and nutritional value. The microbes add vitamin B12 and K, and pre-digests some of the fiber. The ‘lacto-’ part means that a lot of the fermentation is performed by the microbe species Lactobacillus, among many thousands of other species. The microbes in the ferment metabolize the plant sugars to release lactic acid and other delicious byproducts, resulting in a tangy funky umami-rich flavor profile.

Ingredients:

Choose one or some of the following to equal a pound of vegetables (more is fine, you’ll just be chopping for longer).

Radishes (any color - the black ones are very metal), Daikon radishes (the purple ones are are trippy), carrots (any color, so rich!), red peppers, turnips, rutabaga, onions (red, yellow, green), garlic cloves, ginger coins, Brussels sprouts, fennel, Kohlrabi, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage (red or green), celery root, baby bok choi, green beans, cauliflower chunks, even leaves like kale, collards, spicy mustard can go in. Herbs and spices are delicious and fun to add, so collect any or all of the following: cumin, coriander, black peppercorns, red pepper flakes, fennel, rosemary, lemon or other citrus zest. You’ll make your own signature flavor ferment.

Materials and equipment:

Regular salt*, water, jars with lids (any size - I use mason or ball jars with plastic lids), a measuring cup and measuring spoons, maybe a kitchen scale, chopping board, big and small knife.

Technique:

1) Chop the vegetables. Get creative and make shapes (hearts, flowers, triangles, squares…) and pack the veggies into the jars. Either tumble them in or arrange them artfully. You can layer them with slices of onion, or throw in handfuls of whole spices. Leave at least 2 inches of headroom at the top of the jar.

2) Make 2% brine (1 T salt/cup water = approximately 2%*) and pour it in to cover the vegetables, or you can get fancy and use an online brine calculator. Optional; you can pour in a dollop of liquid from a previous fermentation - sauerkraut, fermented pickles, yogurt whey - if you wish to give your ferment a boost. Not necessary though, You’ll create an environment for the correct microbe populations to thrive, boom and bust setting the stage for the next wave of microbes.

3) Put a lid loosely on the veggies and put them in a cupboard at room temperature. Wait 4-5 days, resubmerging the veggies every morning - keep them underwater, the microbes need an anaerobic environment. Taste them - when they are tangy enough to your palate, tighten the lid and put them in the fridge. They will continue to ferment, but at a much slower rate than at room temperature.

Some of my favorite combinations:

• white daikon spears with black peppercorns and red pepper flakes - put a spicy fermented spear into a martini (gin, of course) as a savory addition replacing an olive!

• coins of variously colored winter radishes pack beautifully into a jar

• purple-topped turnip rounds with red onion slices, black peppercorns, coriander and green onion lengths - amazing on a salad or with a grilled entrée

• green cabbage sauerkraut with outrageous pink watermelon radish hearts or triangles along the sides make a lovely gift

• halved dark green Brussels sprouts with whole cumin, coriander and black peppercorn

There are so many possibilities! Let me know what you discover!

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* Salt caveat: Salt (NaCl) is part of the environment you create to nurture the desired microbes and discourage the wrong ones (for example Clostridium Botulinum or E. Coli). If you are creating a ferment for a low-salt-person, you can decrease the brine concentration to 1% and add some sour/acidic cloudy liquid from a previous ferment - called “backslopping”. This immediately decreases the PH (increases acidity) and gives the desired microbe populations an advantage to out-compete undesirable competitors. Be assiduous about keeping the vegetables underwater, and monitor the ferment vigilantly. Your nose will tell you if anything is wrong.

In terms of food safety, fermented food is very safe. C. Botulinum and E. coli cannot survive in the low PH (acidic) environment rapidly created during the first phases of fermentation, such that the beneficials rapidly out-compete any competition.

turnips, celeriac and rutabagas from an overexuberant CSA share

Tart-sweet colorful Apple Berry Crisp

You just cannot beat an apple crisp out of the oven, unless there are berries involved. Not only does it boost the cheerful color of the filling, it enhances the flavor with a delicious tartness that complements the sweet apples, and boosts the nutrition value with extra fiber and phytochemicals within the berries. its also simple as all get-out to make. You can make it completely gluten free by choosing almond or rice flour to add to the rolled oats. I use as many organic ingredients as possible.

ingredients:

(pre heat oven to 350F)

Filling:

3 - 4 local organic apples, washed, cored and coarsely chopped into approximately 1-inch pieces

1 C berries, fresh or thrown in frozen (my fave is blackberries, but I have recently discovered black raspberries, which is rocking my crisp world. Raspberries or blueberries, or an entire mix would be awesome)

Crisp topping:

1/4 C butter (melt in a saucepan) substitute some or all with coconut oil - vegan option!

1/2 C flour - you choose: I use a mix of brown rice and almond. I have also used chestnut, wheat, cornmeal, it doesn’t matter because you are not trying to make something that will hang together.

1 C rolled oats

2-3 T maple syrup

(additional add-ins: toasted walnut pieces, substitute honey for the maple syrup, get creative!)

Put it together:

• Toss the apples and berries together in a glass dish

• add the topping ingredients together in the saucepan with the melted butter and mix until combined

• put the crisp topping on top of the fruit and then put the glass dish into the oven

Bake for 40-60 minutes until the fruit is bubbling and the top is toasty brown.

Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or yogurt or kefir.

Cold apple-berry crisp with kefir is an amazing breakfast. Just sayin’.

Yogurt

Yogurt is a simple dairy ferment that requires a constant temperature for 100F/45C. Once that part is managed, the rest is dead easy.

Ingredients:

1 Q dairy milk (cow, goat, etc.)

2 T starter culture (yogurt from a previous batch, preferably local organic - the CoOp or farmers market are great sources)

Equipment:

thermometer

saucepan

yogurt maker/ environment that will hold 110F/45C for over 4 hrs, and up to 8.

Method:

• Heat milk in the saucepan to 180F for 20 min. This sterilizes the milk so the culture you add has a head start.

• Cool the milk to 110F, stir in the starter culture and whisk to incorporate

• pour the cultured milk into the yogurt maker and set for 6-8 hours. Do not jiggle or disturb.

• refrigerate until chilled

Kombucha

Kombucha is a fermented beverage that falls into the category of live probiotic food. The name “kombucha’ is actually a misnomer (not cha or tea made of the seaweed kombu) but the name has caught on and is now entrenched in popular nomenclature. Kombucha has a deep history from the Orient, to Eastern Asia, Russia and into Europe. It’s basically fermented black tea sweetened with sugar and cultured with a SCOBY. This is an acronym for Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast. The green tea-honey version is called ‘Jun’, but it’s basically the same idea, and my current Kombucha culture came from a Jun that I then added to black tea and sugar.

Primary Fermentation

Ingredients:

4 C water (2X recipe: 8 C water)

1 teaspoons of loose black tea, or 1 black tea bag. English breakfast, Oolong, or orange pekoe are great. You could also use green tea. (2X recipe; 2 teabags) ***(decaf? see note below)

3/8 C sugar (I use plain white sugar) You could also use honey (use 2/3 the amount of honey - it’s sweeter) or maple syrup, or agave etc. It just cannot be fake - the microbes need real carbohydrates to metabolize! (2X recipe: 3/4 C sugar)

SCOBY plus some of it’s previous fermentation liquid - this is the source of the microbial culture.

Equipment:

Large glass or plastic jar/container that can hold 4 C/1 liter (not metal). A large quart mason jar works well (Lid for transport)

clean tea towel and rubber band

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Put the loose or bagged tea in a tea pot, and add boiling water - cover, steep (30 min - overnight), then cool. Discard the tea.

Add cooled brewed tea to the jar, add water to make up a total of 4 C and dissolve 3/8 C sugar into it. Put today’s date on the jar with a sharpie.

Add your SCOBY plus liquid to the diluted sweet tea. Cover with a tea towel and secure with a rubber band so nothing flies in, and wait 1-2 weeks.

I suggest tasting it every day so you get an idea of how it progresses. Using a clean spoon, dip out some of the liquid from underneath the newly-forming SCOBY. It will go from very sweet to slightly vinegary and fizzy. How far you let it go is up to you. It will move faster in warmer months, and slower in cooler temperatures. Try to keep the fermentation at 75-80F; this is more important that I originally thought. I have to put it near my furnace in winter months because I keep my house pretty cool. One the fermentation reaches the flavor you like, you have successfully made plain kombucha! Congratulations!

Secondary Fermentation

To get fancy with flavors, decant the liquid from the first batch into a corkable bottle, add more microbe food in the form of fruit sugar, seal it, thus trapping the CO2 to make a flavored fizzy kombucha.

Ingredients:

Decanted kombucha from the primary fermentation (leave about 2 inches of liquid in with the mother SCOBY in the original vessel)

Fruit juice (pasteurized or freshly squeezed/prepared) or pieces of clean fruit, berries other flavoring in any combination.

Equipment:

Clean funnel is useful for pouring kombucha from first batch into bottles without a big mess.

Clean corked bottles. I like the grolsch or swing armed ones, and I also like using old liquor bottles - they are so pretty with the colorful kombucha in it.

A little bit of extra sugar, if necessary (for example if using lavender or ginger root; flavorings without a lot of sweetness)

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Put juice or fruit in the bottom of the bottles, and carefully decant some of the primary kombucha on top. Leave a good 2 inches of space at the top of the bottles. Cork the bottles and leave at room temperature (optimally 75-80F) and wait 2-3 days. Burp the bottles every day. I suggest you also taste them every day to get an idea of how fast they will move. If the primary ferment is quite sour, the secondary won’t need very much time, and could tip over into vinegar quickly, so keep an eye (taste bud?) on them.I have also added a teaspoonful or sugar in there to bring the flavor back from overly-acid. A new baby SCOBY will form in the secondary too, since it is from the same culture as the mother. To consume, I gently shake the bottle (careful when you open it - fizzzzzzz!) and then pour the kombucha through a strainer. This way I get the benefit of the liquid culture, but not the solids. Some folks consume them (ugh, I just can’t… too slimy.)

Once you are happy with the flavor of your secondary ferment, cork it and move it to the fridge where it will slow down drastically, and be a more refreshing beverage. They’ll re-fizz themselves a little due to the very slow fermentation that still occurs in the cooled corked bottles. Refrigerating is important so that CO2 doesn’t build up too much, blow out the bottles and make a mess.

Kombucha make great mixers or soda replacers in cocktails or mocktails.

***Decaf Kombucha note:

Remember that kombucha is a caffeinated beverage - the culture has evolved in black or green teas which are naturally caffeinated, and the microbes need it to survive. Commercially decaffeinated teas are achieved by treatment with various chemicals like ethyl acetate or methylene chloride, so I’m not a fan. You could use your SCOBY to make kombucha with a tisane/naturally decaffeinated tea like chamomile or rooibos. But the SCOBY does prefer to be caffeinated, so if you do this plan to recaffeinate your mother SCOBY by doing a regular black tea brew every other batch.

Secondary Ferment flavors; Add about 1/4 C of liquid pasteurized juice, fresh squeezed juice, a few berries, to some lightly smashed fruit slices to a clean bottle 2/3 full of your strained primary ferment (once you are happy with the flavor and kick). This is where you can get very creative.

My favorite flavors right now are: black raspberry, raspberry, lavender, ginger, peach, and lemon-rosemary. Basically what I have around the house with frozen berries or fruit from the summer. Other great flavors are pomegranate, sour cherry and blueberry, which I create by buying bottles of organic juice from the store. Once opened keep juice refrigerated or it will ferment, because everything ferments!! I pour the juice into ice cube trays so I can store small amounts in the freezer that I may then add to future secondary ferments.

• pear-ginger

• toasted coriander and lime (toast and crush 2 teaspoons coriander seeds, add to bottle along with the juice of 1 lime) ** this one is delicious!

• blueberry (add 1/4 blueberry juice) or 1/4 C of smashed (washed) fresh or frozen blueberries

• tart cherry (add 1/4 tart cherry juice to the bottle)

• raspberry (add 6 cleaned raspberries -frozen OK- to the bottle. Be sure to check for mold on the raspberries, there’s always an evil one somewhere...)

• lemon-rosemary

• strawberry-sage

• rosa rugosa petals (beyond amazing - 5-6 flowers-worth of petals and it’s like you are drinking beautiful sunshiny roses. collect your rose petals away from roadways and other pollution sources. I like gathering them near beaches.)

If you forget about your flavored kombucha and it goes waaaaay too sour, then you have kombucha vinegar! Use it to make salad dressings or give soups or sauces a bright acid note. I forgot a raspberry secondary once, and made a (lot of) delicious raspberry vinaigrette.

Trouble shooting: how to get more “fizz”:

The fizz is the “exhaled” carbon dioxide from the metabolic processes of the microbes.

TLDR nerd version: Just like us, bacteria and yeasts in the SCOBY eat sugars or carbohydrates, which occur in 5- and 6- carbon chains, breaking them apart into single carbon molecules. This process liberates and recaptures the stored energy between the carbon bonds. We also obtain energy from our food in this manner, and call it “metabolism”. We eat foods made up of mixtures of fats, carbohydrates and proteins, break them apart and use them as building blocks to build and repair our bodies, and harvest the energy between the carbon bonds. We use oxygen to do it, and we exhale the most broken down and oxidized form of carbon; a single carbon atom with two oxygens attached, also known as carbon dioxide/CO2. The microbes do it in other ways, using water, but also end up releasing CO2. This is the fizz.

Firstly, to capture CO2/fizz, check that the lid of your bottle is air-tight. Carbonation happens when the CO2 cannot escape from the vessel, and instead dissolves into the kombucha. Once your secondary fermentation has reached the flavor you like, ensure the cap is tight and then refrigerate.

Secondly, you can add a little bit more sugar/food to the secondary fermentation for the microbes to metabolize and release a bit of extra CO2.

Once you put your kombucha in the fridge, metabolism will continue at a very reduced rate so you might get discernible carbonation, or it might be too slow to really re-fizz a lot. The microbes go into a bit of hibernation. Home-made kombucha will never be as carbonated as commercial brands, which are forcibly carbonated.

Farmer's Market Frittata

All ingredients can be sourced locally at the Portland Farmer’s market!

• 6 eggs

• 1 bunch of chard, leaves stripped from stems, stems chopped and diced, leaves julienned

• 3 oz feta cheese, crumbled

• 1/2 large onion, diced

• 2 cloves garlic, squished

- sautée the diced onions and chard stems until soft, add garlic and stir around another minute, add the julienned chard leaves and cook until limp and fragrant. not too long - the chard should still be vibrantly green

- break 6 eggs into a bowl and stir up with a fork, add the feta crumbles, a few grinds of pepper and 1/2 teaspoon of salt'

- add the cooked onions and chard to the eggs and stir it all up together

- tip the mess into a 9” olive-oiled cast iron frying pan on medium heat - it should sizzle.

- Cook on medium heat until the eggs pull away a bit for the sides. The top middle may still be a bit liquid.

- transfer under a broiler and watch carefully until done. You could grate some parmesan on the top before so it browns up a bit.

***Other sprinkles to go on top: za’atar, sumac, and/or my signature blend of toasted cumin, hot red pepper flakes and home-oven-dried tomatoes pulverized in a vitamix.