Sunday, August 29, 2010

Food overload - preserving notches up a gear

There is just so much to eat at the moment. Broccoli coming out of our ears, cabbages, cauliflower, peas, Chinese cabbages, fennel, and Asparagus just about to explode out of the ground. Luckily this August has not turned on the heat - apart from the odd day otherwise things would be growing twice as fast. This August has been a couple of degrees below average due to the rain and cloudiness.

Sauerkraut, Fennel and Parsnips

So what preserving have we done this weekend?
Made my first batch of Kimchee (thanks to Mr H for telling me that is was quite ok to leave out chilli)
Made another big jar of sauerkraut
blanched and froze cauliflower
Made pumpkin chutney (the wifey).


Kimchee - ready for the brine solution

We have also been making cabbage salad with our chines cabbages.
You can do this salad with normal cabbage but not too often as raw cabbage has the ability to stop you absorbing iodine - i think.

ingredients
Chinese cabbage
lime or lemon juice
soy sauce
sugar - or make your soy sauce a sweet one
sesame oil
olive oil
sesame seeds - toasted (can do in a saucepan)
spring onion leaves
coriander leaves or thai basil ( i prefer the thai basil)

Now the dressing is not precisely measure but i reckon
juice of one lemon
4 tablespoons of soy
1 tsp of sugar
1-2 tbsp of sesame oil and the same for olive oil

Generally finely shred and combine the rest of the ingredients.

We have also been making a gremolata out of our preserved lemon skin, finely chopped with lots of Parsley.
have on top of stews, baked potatoes, mashed potato
we also use the preserved lemon skin on our pizzas the other day which was very nice.

Tonight for rabbit stew with our parsnips, fennel, greens and potatoes and pumpkin mash with parsley and lemon gremolata.

3 comments:

  1. I like the salad recipe a lot and will have to try it. Here is a link that shows a few different types of kimchi -

    http://www.lifeinkorea.com/food/Food.cfm?Subject=kimchi

    The white kimchi without chili pepper that you are making is a version of what is called "Baek Kimchi." My wife prefers this kind although we do spice it up quite a bit just not with too much chili powder.

    Also, I had to look up gremolata as I had never heard of it before. I found a good recipe and look forward to trying this as well, we are always trying to find ways to incorporate more nutrient dense parsley and garlic in our diet.

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  2. Parsley is just a bit of a hidden powerhouse of nutrients isn't it? I don't think many people realise, but if you look up the nutrient content of Parsley it is quite high in many things. We were introduced to Gremolata by Jamie Olivers' books, which i must say have been the books we have learned most from and cooked the most with in our kitchen.

    I reckon Jack will like that recepe too - our kids eat a whole bowl.
    Thanks for the link on Kimchi. In hindsight i should have put some diakon radish in my kimchi - someone reminded me!
    When people ask me now i'll tell them i actually make Baek Kimchi. Thanks for the link. I'll have a look.

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  3. That site is a bit of an education. I really would like to go to a Korean resturaunt one day and try some of these in a traditional way. If i love this batch if Kimchi, it won't be long before i do my next batch.

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