Making the Cabbage Last

We rescued four or so heads of cabbage from the chicken that kept getting into the garden and we've made cole slaw, smothered cabbage in a cast iron skillet with beef tallow and we've made a cabbage, rice, and ground meat casserole that is so good! With the last remaining heads, we decided to make sauerkraut.

Last year we really messed it up.  Instead of measuring, we estimated the volume of cabbage and were way off.  The sauerkraut was very, very salty.  It was edible, but too salty.  I'll show you in a minute how we made sure things were right this year. From Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions Cookbook, we used the following recipe. For a quart of sauerkraut, you will need a medium cabbage shredded, a tablespoon sea salt, and 4 tablespoons whey.

Here is our nice fat cabbage, ready to be transformed into sauerkraut.

We shredded the cabbage in a food processor and then with a meat tenderizer, we pounded the shredded cabbage to bruise it and release the liquids within the leaves.

Then, in order to get the measurements right, we packed the cabbage into quart sized jars.  NOW WE KNOW exactly how much salt and whey to add!  Much better than guessing and guessing wrong.

We knew that we had three quarts of cabbage.  We poured it all back in the bowl and added 3 tablespoons salt and 12 tablespoons of whey and stirred it all up.  The whey was separated off when Tricia made kefir.  Whey is a natural preservative. Since we had 3 quarts of cabbage, we tripled the recipe.  Then using a canner's funnel we filled three quart jars with sauerkraut and packed it down with a spoon until it was packed in the jars.

Here is a picture of the fresh-made sauerkraut prior to putting the lids on.

We put the lids on tight and left them at room temperature for 3 days before putting them in the back of the refrigerator.  You can eat the sauerkraut as soon as you want, but we find that sauerkraut gets better with age.

We will open up a jar in a couple of months and enjoy.  I've labeled the jars so we know when to open up a jar to eat.  Sauerkraut is especially good served cold on a hot day.  It is tangy and refreshing.  It also aids in digestion.  Sauerkraut is preserved by lacto-fermentation and in addition to preserving the cabbage, it has lactobicilli that aids in digestion, increases vitamins and produce helpful enzymes that are healthy for you.