Naturopathic Control: Fermented Vegetables

I have otherwise posted about preparing fermented vegetables, specifically sauerkraut, often along with other vegetables. Since that post is very comprehensive, I will make this one brief. While that other post is based on the dry method (ie fermenting without added water by expelling water that is naturally occurring within a vegetable like cabbage), this post discusses the alternative, ie the 'wet method' because it involves adding water. This is an alternative to sauerkraut if you do not have vegetables like cabbage that can produce enough water to entirely submerge the vegetables.

Unlike sauerkraut, this process does not involve bruising or massaging the vegetables. All you need to do is pack the vegetables and add enough brine to submerge them. Everything else that applies to sauerkraut applies.

All that extra brine

I enjoy using the extra brine for other ferments, as a starter for sauerkraut and subsequent vegetable ferments. Otherwise, I use the brine along with the vegetables along with other foods like blandly boiled pearl barley along with any delicious extras like nutritional yeast.

You will need

raw vegetables. Crudely cut. I prefer crude cuts so as to prevent tiny pieces from floating above the brine. As much as possible, keep the skins, even for garlic. Here are some examples of commonly used vegetables. If you have organic vegetables, wash rather than discard the skin. You can wash and scrub them with diluted vinegar or lemon juice without killing all of the good bacteria. However, washing them this way, along with scrubbing them with a brush or even baking soda and or salt will remove wax coating. Never use antibacterial soaps because they will kill good bacteria. Many nutrients and good bacteria are abundant in the skin. While it is common to ferment only 1 vegetable at a time, you can get as colorful and varied as you like. Since this is not a science, just use what you have. See some variations below.

vegetables: carrots, sweet peppers, mushrooms, broccoli, cucumbers, sweet potato
herbs & spices: garlic, onions, basil leaves, thyme leaves. BTW, the intense flavor of garlic and onion become so much less intense that you can add more than just a pinch if you are particularly interested in them.

herbs, flavorful (garlic, dill, onion, peppers). You can use dried herbs also.
brine. Make enough to completely submerge the vegetables.

salt, 3% of water (ie apx 1 tbsp salt to 2 cups of water)
non-chlorinated water

optional. 1 Black tea tea bag for tannin per jar (or 2 tea bags of Green tea bag). Other alternatives include grape vine leaves. Tannin may keep vegetables crispier than otherwise. Place the bag at the base of your fermentation jar ... or use brewed tea as the base for your brine. FYI, this is an issue for fermented vegetables, even carrots. My 3 week-old otherwise fresh and crunchy carrots were mushy as if someone had overcooked them to make baby purée. The cucumbers and sweet peppers were not too much better. In fact, these left tough, unpalatable skins that were like strips of thick plastic bag. Common reasons for this mush phenomenon is doing the fermentation in very high climatic conditions and, in my case, also leaving the ferment on the counter for an extended period. Enzymes in blossom ends of cucumbers are also a culprit. However, I question whether the existence of these ends completely removes these enzymes because, even after removing these ends, cucumbers are the fastest to get mushy.
weight or disk (to keep the vegetables below the level of the brine)

Here are some other delicious mixes that I have made.

Image above: carrots, red sweet peppers, raddish root & greens, cabbage, red onion, garlic, mint leaves, tarragon leaves

Image & video above: I started to test leaves other than the popularly used cabbage to keep the ferment below the water. Here is Cuban oregano. It grows endlessly in my garden and mostly goes unused. I also used other non-traditional leaves from my garden that include salad peperomia pellucida and zebrina pendula.

Raw mushrooms (with fennel seeds) are both good for brain health. Exposing mushrooms, even store-bought ones to sunlight increases the vitamin D2 content quite measurably. Place them upside down on a baking sheet to expose the more absorbent gills to the sunlight for up to 2 days of bright sunlight. For button mushrooms which do not have exposed gills (even when turned upside down), slice and lay them out on the baking sheet to allow vitamin D production from the meaty part (where their phytochemical vitamin D production occurs). See image below of some button mushrooms that I placed in an upturned stainless pot cover. I placed excess into an upturned glass cover that received sunlight from the bottom also because it was on top of a reflective pot. (If you are dehydrating the mushrooms, take them in at night to avoid re-uptake of moisture from atmospheric humidity.) Unfortunately, unlike many others, I have been unsuccessful with fermenting mushrooms but know that, it is do-able. So I just continue sunning them before just eating them shortly thereafter.

Heart of palm (below). The taste and texture, even before fermentation, are great. However, I am on the fence about using this ingredient from a conservation perspective.