Lactic Acid Pickles and Fermentation

I have now got loads of milk whey left from making kefir cheese. I have been reading up about pickling vegetables in whey instead of using vinegar. The Ancient Ones used to make preserved vegetables using whey - it is a nasty modern idea to use highly acidic pickling vinegar. The commercial manufactures use acetic acid instead of lactic acid with all its friendly bacteria. The old method meant that the foods were preserved using lactic acid and the acidophilus bacteria stopped any nasty putrefaction - they did the preserving. These days, the acetic acid kills everything - including your taste buds.

Seriously, if you eat too many pickles, it can lead to stomach ulcers. The Japanese are among the healthiest nations on the planet but they still have a very high incidence of stomach ulcers and this can lead to stomach cancer. The reason for this is the incredibly high number of pickles they eat alongside their very healthy sushi and sashimi.

So let's get back to the old methods and use whey (lactic acid teeming with friendly bacteria - especially when it is whey from making kefir), to preserve our vegetables. They are more fermented than pickled and this makes for a very gentle-on-the-tongue pickle that has an exquisite flavour and texture rather than an acid bite that the commercial pickles give you.

A mixture of shredded cabbage and carrot is called Kimchi and it is a lovely accompaniment to cold meats and fish. Cabbage alone is of course sauerkraut and we are all familiar with that. Red cabbage (Rot Kohl) is often used in Germany and Bavaria, served hot with all sorts of warm, filling winter dumplings and good stuff (remember I eat cooked foods in the winter so I do appreciate warm, rib-sticking knoedels and ham dumplings that the Austrians do so well!).

We eat a lot of sushi and sashimi (raw fish is an important source of vitamin B12 for raw foodies), at home so we often run out of the little packets of pickled ginger, so this was first on my list of new creations. I have found a lovely jumbo piece of ginger root and scraped and sliced it very thinly. I put this in a jar with whey which I have coloured using beetroot powder so it is the traditional pink colour but with no nasty chemical colourings. It is now sitting in the fridge muttering quietly. I will check it in two weeks to see if it is ready. I will let you know how it goes.

So now I still have three litres of kefir whey still left in the fridge. I have a cabbage in the cooler that seems to want to be shredded up with a carrot to make some kimchi. Trouble is, I often go to the trouble of making all this stuff and then nobody wants to eat it. Perhaps I am not doing the sell bit very well....? The question is, am I going to get around to shredding it and putting it in a jar. We will see. I really need a very clever raw recipe for something delicious to make using the kefir whey. I wish I could find a Themomix recipe for making ice cream or sorbet of some kind with the whey. I will keep looking and experimenting.

I have visions of having gluts of vegetables which I dehydrate and bottle in oil or slice thinly and pickle in whey. I have these earth-mother hallucinations of cupboards stacked full of jars and bottles of nutrition-rich preserved (RAW) foods brimming with enzymes and probiotics which will see us through the winter - organic, wholesome and yummy.

Well - first, you have a dream, then you make a plan from the dream, then you make it happen. Watch this space.

Kefir cheese and dehydrators

Dehydrator experiment went a bit wrong; the kefir curdled quite alarmingly. It grew more but it made a very acidic yogurt that I didn't like much. So we have decided that we will not use the dehydrator but keep it at room temperature but slightly warm the milk before we put it over the grains, taking the fridge chill off really. That way, we don't retard the growth whilst the milk comes up to room temperature.

I am using the curdled kefir (now reconstituted) as part of a batch set aside for making some more probiotic cheese; I love that feta-style kefir cheese. I shall have to give it a name - any suggestions?
Kefa? Fetir?

Kefir and home-made feta-type cheese

Kefir
We are growing our kefir on at astonishing rates at the moment. I have sourced unpasteurised milk from Hook and Son (thanks for that link, Janie Turner of Thermomix) and now I am happily slurping 6-8 ozs of gorgeous creamy kefir each morning.
The kefir cheese is just an amazing success. I am so proud of myself! After several revolting and probably health-risking attempts at making a probiotic cheese, I have perfected the method.

You need a large bowlful of kefir - whole milk is best but the raw milk people seem to only sell semi-skimmed, so we are making do with that. Put the whole bowlful in a cheesecloth (this is best done by simply lining a large bowl with cloth and then filling it with kefir. When it is all settled, gather up the corners of the cloth and pin them together and lift gently, hanging the whole thing just above the bowl to drain. After 24-36 hours, you will have a bowl of thin whey and a cloth full of what looks like Philadelphia cheese. The whey is great added to fresh fruit and veggie juices or used in bread making or to make the crackers mentioned below. It is also fab for enzyme-rich pickles- more about that another day.

Scrape the soft cheese into another bowl. I found that you can almost mould the cheese in your hands through the cloth, picking up all the bits stuck to the cloth as you go. Put the cheese ball into the bowl and add salt and mix well. I bought a couple of cheese moulds from the internet, there are several cheese making suppliers on ebay. I line the cheese mould with fresh clean cloth and then pop the cheese into the mould. Cover with the cloth and put the press lid in place. Then I put a heavy weight on top and watch the last of the whey start to ooze out of the holes in the mould. I leave it to compress for a couple of days.

Turn it out of the mould - then a couple more days in the fridge and you will have a large lump of what looks and cuts like white Wensleydale and tastes like a slightly beery Feta cheese. It is just wonderful.

I put this on my dehydrated raw crackers (my version of Scan bran - email me if you would like the recipe: enquiries@taymount.com) and I feel so virtuous, it is a scandal.

Love and kefir grains to the world.
Oh, if you want some kefir grains, you can buy them on the taymount website: www.taymount.com - products - digestive aids

We are just experimenting to see if the kefir grows faster in the dehydrator - in a sealed Kilner jar to keep it from drying out of course. We already found that if you are making bread, the dehydrator is incredible for speeding up the proving and rising process. Just put a shower cap over the bowl to keep the bread dough moist.