Home Made Sauerkraut
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Chop the cabbage using a food chopper.
Pack the chopped cabbage in a large crock, layering with a little salt. Use about 1 teacup of salt in total.
Ferment
Cover the cabbage with a plate and a heavy weight.
Keep the crock in a warm place until brine forms.
The sauerkraut will be ready to eat in 2 weeks.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Cabbage
- Provides the bulk of the dish and, once salted, releases its juices to form the brine.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws water out of the cabbage to form brine and keeps unwanted spoilage microbes in check during fermentation.
The step that matters
Keeping the cabbage fully under brine. Cabbage left exposed to air can grow mold and spoil. The plate and weight keep the shreds submerged in their brine, where the salt favors the lactic acid bacteria that ferment and preserve the cabbage.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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