garlic scape pickles, bite-size ferment, mango-chili vinegar

May 26, 2014 by sharplydentate 2 Comments

Today I started a few different fermented goodies.

For the first two, I used my usual lazy interpretation of Sandor Ellix Katz’s basic instructions from the fabulous Wild Fermentation: I add sea salt to water until it tastes about like tears, or a little more salt if the veggies are tightly packed in the vessel and not much water will fit. My goal is for the water to be clearly salty, but not unpleasantly so, not like a saltwater gargle. Then I weight the veggies, to be sure they stay under the surface of the liquid, and set them aside to ignore them for a while.

Pickle 1 was elephant garlic scapes, trimmed at the base to fit into the pitcher I used but otherwise left whole, and a few lengths of gobo (burdock root). I seasoned them with foraged goodies: grape leaves to keep them crunchier, green seed pods (siliques, as I just learned yesterday) from a few different weedy mustard-relatives, and a couple fir tips just to see if I like them.

Pickle 2 was the trimmed parts of the scapes, sliced into small bits, plus chopped gobo and daikon. I added some Korean chili powder, plus a bit of the brine from the radish pickles in the fridge, to quicken the fermentation. My hope is that this one will be perfect for adding a spoonful or two to soups, rice, or even ramen, to add some kimchi-ish veggie goodness.

The third thing is a new sort of thing for me. I read a great post about making “scrap vinegars” over at Kitchen Counter Culture, so I tossed a mango pit (with a fair bit of flesh attached) in a jar with Korean chili powder, water, a squirt of honey, and a splash of live-culture apple cider vinegar. Remember the mango lollipops with the chili-lime-salt coating? I’m hoping that I’ll wind up with a vinegar version of that.