Citizen Kale

It's an incredible movie, and now it's an incredible kraut. Introducing Citizen Kale!

I drew Kane's face by using the line tool in PowerPoint to trace parts of a picture.  My wife told me that was cheating, then I said something gentlemanly back to her.  Long story short I slept on the couch that night.

I dreamed of one day fermenting kale in a sauerkraut, which sounds really lame when I could be dreaming about more important things like time travel, world peace or a Ghostbusters III movie. But it just seemed like such an obviously great idea that I was bothered I hadn't done it yet.

I love kale, it's all the rage these days with the kids (I'm out of touch with the kids), I'm growing it in my garden so I wouldn't have to buy it, and the name of the kraut was the easiest pun ever.  All I had to do was change one letter in Citizen Kane and it was done. Everything just made sense.

Without this there was going to be a lot of words in a row, so here, enjoy a picture.

But I had to wait through the summer until cabbage came back into season. Once fall hit and cabbage started showing up at the farmers market it was time to make my dreams a reality!

I had a small window of opportunity to make this as I was heading to England for a week in early September and I had a camping trip coming up a month later in October that I wanted some kraut for. Kraut takes about a month to ferment, and if I didn't get it in the crock before I left the country it wouldn't be ready for camping. So the last thing I did before I got onto my flight was make kraut.  I had this concern that I would wreak of cabbage for 8 hours on the plane after, but if I did nobody complained. Who knows, maybe they found it a pleasant scent.

In addition to the cabbage and kale, I added in 2 small heads of garlic, 3 yellow hot peppers with seeds, 3 jalapeno peppers with seeds, and salt. I chopped the garlic and peppers up very finely in a small food processor to make sure it spread evenly through the cabbage and kale mix, hand chopped the kale, and hand shredded the cabbage.

Also of note, I used a ton of cabbage.  This is by far the most kraut I've made.  I was shredding it for what felt like forever, and it was overflowing in the 3 gallon crock.

After mixing everything together with salt and packing it down into the crock, I prepared it for fermentation slightly different than usual thanks to two new items I got for my birthday. 

Previously I would keep the cabbage submerged in the brine using a plate with a water filled growler for a weight on top of it. But now I have fermentation weights! Basically they are a pair or 2 lb ceramic half circles that fit into the crock and take the place of the plate and growler. Also, because there are gaps between the two weights to make it easier to remove, I placed a few whole cabbage leaves under them to keep the shredded kraut from floating up through. Not only are those leaves functional, but you could also eat them after fermenting as well.

It looks all legitimate now.

The other new item I got was a ceramic lid.  I used to use a pillow case tied tight to the crock with a sting to keep anything from getting in. This lid performs the same function, but also makes checking the kraut during fermentation much easier, and looks tremendously less ghetto.

Its a hat.

Just under 4 weeks later I pulled out the kraut, jarred it, and brought it camping for its first taste test.  It came out fantastic!  That description does you no good, but its got great sauerkraut flavor with a slight kale kick along with the pepper and garlic. If this isn't my favorite kraut I've done its in my top 2.

And, as I mentioned before, I used a ton of cabbage, which means I have a ton of kraut! It ended up filling 10 pint jars, and I've got a few jars to give away still. So if you want some let me know, and as long as you can pick it up its yours.  Hurray for free kraut!