Which is actually surprisingly difficult to do when it comes to fermenting stuff. I’ve done a fair bit of experimental fermentation with beer and milk, kraut seems no different when it comes to accidentally making poison. That is, you’ll know if it’s poison. Your nose will tell you way before your tastebuds come into play. So just chuck it out and try again.
Start with a small batch. It’s not as if you’ll have accidentally made 100 litres of ropey snot by mistake (Don’t ask. Not one of my smarter moves. )
Beef and vegetable stew with horseradish dumplings. British food doesn’t have a great reputation, but there is plenty of good food if it’s cooked properly.
Yeah, from what I understand, the reputation of British cuisine being awful was from WWII, when they had nothing to cook with but garbage and the stuff so bad it wasn’t fit for soldiers. But I’ve been told that before the war the British had a varied cuisine that was quite tasty and not all eel pies and congealed blood and biscuits and tea.
There’s also a reputation for overboiling everything and not using herbs and spices properly. As someone once said, “white people conquered and enslaved the world in search of spices, and now they don’t even use them”. The book I generally use for British cooking (when I’m not Googling a recipe, as I did this week) is from 1968. Most of the food is from the British Isles, with some influence from France. Italy and Spain are almost completely absent, with the exception of a token recipe for pizza and a pasta dish for Italy and a couple of common Spanish recipes like tortilla. It’s mostly traditional recipes, which I like - they’re generally uncomplicated and focus on a few clearly identifiable flavours, which I think is one of the strengths of the cuisine.
I’m sucking it up and doing it. After work tomorrow, I’m going to the grocery store and buying a head of cabbage and whatever else the highest rated kraut recipe says and starting on a batch of saurkraut.
Screw being scared, this could be the start of something wonderful.
And worst case, you’ve made something epically stinky and you’re down a buck or two for cabbage and have the start of a suitable embroidered anecdote…
Win all round, I reckon.
The last time I cooked something more complicated than microwavable food, I had to eat a whole bottle of antacids, and that didn’t help. But I suppose if I keep cooking, my bones are gonna get SO STRONG…
I’ve been meaning to get into bread making again, but our breadmaker is very convenient and Lidl sells a variety of mixes that are are cheap and pretty good (it works out about 50 cents for a loaf that tastes a lot better than normal sliced bread), so laziness has so far won out. Soda bread is the exception, but without yeast it feels like cheating.
Isn’t that the strength of most traditional recipes? Is anyone else tired of ingredient lists that take up an entire page (or two) in a cookbook, mostly for trace amounts of items which can only be bought in large quantities and will never be used again?
Did you know that you can use your breadmaker for the mixing, kneading, and first rise part and still do the shaping, last rise, and baking on your own? Did I learn that technique from the King Arthur Flour website, because that is how they do all their testing?
We sometimes use that setting for things like pizza, or put it on overnight to make dough for bagels in the morning. There’s even a setting for making jam, which actually works quite well. It’s just that when it’s so easy to make acceptable bread, I don’t tend to do anything much more ambitious.
Trader Joe’s tempeh that was steamed then marinated in Trader Joe’s Soyaki, then cooked in cast iron with a bit of Trader Joe’s canola oil. Served with Trader Joe’s organic carrots, Trader Joe’s organic tomatoes and Trader Joe’s canned dolmas.
Having another fennel/leek/chicken thing tonight, haven’t worked out the details yet.
But I did pick up a couple kilos of Aussie garlic for next-to-nothing at Trader Shouty Vietnamese Woman’s stall, so that’s just been pickled and is now sat in jars.
Tonight was simple but tasty…
Cut up a chicken, melt one stick butter in a baking pan place chicken in pan and get it well coated with the butter, sprinkle Spike on it, bake until done.
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