Making (Lacto-fermented) Pickled Beets

We've made a red velvet cake with our beets, eaten the beet greens, steamed them in broth, roasted them in the oven with olive oil, and made beet kvass.  One more thing we usually do with them is pickle them.  In the past, we usually pickle them in apple cider vinegar, red onions, with cloves.  They are delicious, and we serve them as a cold appetizer before meals along with pickled okra and black olives.

Today we're going to use the very last of the Bull's Blood Beets to make pickled beets, but we are going to make them using a recipe out of Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions Cookbook that uses lacto-fermentation.  We harvested the last of the beets.

Bull's Blood Beets

Beets aren't a very pretty vegetable like green beans or swiss chard.  They look dull and boring in the bucket.

Bucket o' Beets

Bring the beets inside, poke them with a fork in several places and put them in a tray in the oven and bake them at 300 degrees F for 3 hours or until they are soft through and through when you stick a fork in them. Then go ahead and peel them, exposing the deep, rich, red color.

Baked Beets

Slice the beets, julienne style, in 1/4 inch slices.

Baked Beets - Julienne style

Put them in a quart jar and press them down with a wooden spoon.

Then mix 1 tablespoon sea salt, 4 tablespoons whey (by product of making kefir), and a cup of filtered water, and pour over the beets, filling the jar.

Put the lid and ring on the jar, covering tightly and set aside at room temperature for 3 days.

Sitting at room temperature for 3 days

At the end of 3 days, move into the refrigerator.  I can't tell you how it tastes yet since it is still fermenting and we haven't sampled it yet, but if this is anything like lacto-fermented sauerkraut and gingered carrots that we make using the same basic process, it's gonna be good!  We'll let you know.