Fermented Red Cabbage Salad

Adapted from an online recipe for Danish red cabbage, this is a sweet & sour flavored salad ideal for the holidays. The fermentation adds the sour without vinegar, and the currant syrup adds the necessary sweet without additional sugar.

1 quart of fermented red cabbage (a.k.a. red kraut, 3 month aged or more)
Steam kraut until soft, let cool, and then mix with:

2/3 cup currant syrup
1/3 cup currants
apple cubes
walnuts
1/4 tsp ground clove (substitute cinnamon if you prefer)

The red cabbage kraut:

1.75 pounds red cabbage, thin sliced
Soak in a bowl with salt water for an hour or two: 1 pint water (let water sit overnight to let chlorine dissipate) and 2 tsp. canning or sea salt
Drain salt water and set aside
Pack cabbage tightly in quart jar and top with brine (3/4" head space)
Lid finger tight and put in a dish (because fermentation will cause it to burp and spill over)
After 1 week sitting at room temp (~70 degrees), clean top of jar and  lid, and re-pack cabbage, adding brine if necessary to cover cabbage, lid tightly and put in cool basement temperature space for 3-12 months

Tip: if you bring it to a non-Danish party, don't call it "Rødkål."
Phonetically sounds too close to "road kill" for English speakers.

Fermented Potatoes?

I'm a big fan of the homemade sauerkraut--easy to make with only salt, cabbage, and time. A friend told me about fermented potatoes. Doesn't sound quite right, right? I read two articles on the topic--Traditional Potato Preparation Reduces Acrylamide and Crickly, Crackly Fermented Potatoes.

First article talks about how grandma used to soak spuds before we knew why--and it goes into some of the why (soaking/fermenting reduces a carcinogenic compound during cooking and converts sugars). Second article describes a chef's comments (quoted from another source) about soaked potatoes being the only way to achieve excellent potato results--and this second article offers a roasted potato recipe.

I tried the a batch of roasted potato wedges tonight after a 3-day brine; didn't get a huge hit of tangy taste of fermented vegetable, but the potatoes were delicious and they took a bit of time to brown up--a successful experiment that I'll try again soon.

PS: If you find the math behind brine solution a little annoying (3.5%, or 4.2%, etc.), my go-to brine is 1 tsp. canning salt per cup of water.

Red potato wedges in a half gallon mason jar
in saltwater brine, with a cabbage leaf atop