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Saturday, February 2nd, 2013 05:03 pm
When you don't have sauerkraut, and you do have cabbage, and you're willing to wait one day but not six weeks:

1. shred your cabbage all all up
2. put it in a glass bowl with a little salt (really, just a teaspoon for half a head of cabbage)
3. put a little whey from the top of the yogurt, or a little lemon juice or vinegar
4. put a weight. I used a smaller bowl, in which I put a large jar of water
5. leave it overnight
6. in the morning, put some vinegar. You could put dill now
7. a few hours later, drain it. I rinsed it to make it less salty

Then I shredded pastrami into it and put some brown mustard on it and ate it like that for a reuben salad.

On a related front, I have too many parsnips, for complicated reasons. And almost no onion or garlic for another week or so. I am about to prove to myself that it is possible to eat well without onion or garlic, I suppose.

On a completely unrelated front, we're well into springtime action around here, with the birds making a racket and attempting to flock. I say attempting because Rachel Carson was completely correct and we've got just ragged little refugee communities of birds. They're not getting more than twenty or thirty together, when they should be blacking out the sky.
Sunday, February 3rd, 2013 04:54 am (UTC)
I've never eaten sauerkraut, although I want to try, because here, it's only sold in supermarkets that cater to rich people and ex-pats. Now I've seen your easy method to make it, I will try to make it ASAP.

Also, I've never eaten parsnip, not available here.
Sunday, February 3rd, 2013 06:00 am (UTC)
Currently I am in favor of eating whatever is in front of me, and making the best thing I can out of whatever that is. Parsnips are okay, but the only reason I have so many of them is that they are abundant and actually free right now. I'd rather have turnips any day, but those cost actual money, so parsnips it is. They're kind of like a carrot with a stronger, more herby, more pervasive taste.

Cabbage of some kind is near universal, and pickled cabbage is almost as common. The cabbage I made with this method tasted like very mild normal sauerkraut. Strong normal sauerkraut can bring tears to the eyes. In a good way.