Fifty Shades of Fresno

Made with an enormous amount of Fresno peppers and named after a movie I've never seen and book I'll never read, I give you my hottest kraut to date: Fifty Shades of Fresno!

Just so we're all clear, the pepper is in place of the tie he's holding in the movie poster....perverts.

I came across a recipe for a sriracha style hot sauce in my Asian Pickles book that used red fresno peppers in place of red jalapeno peppers, so when I was in Wegmans picking up cabbage to do another kraut and saw fresno peppers I decided to grab a bucket full and make hot sauce as well.

Literally a bucket full. I also measure my peaches by the basket and my scapes by the sack, but that's for another time.

When I got home and realized, due to the sack of scapes in the fridge (that time came quick), I was signing myself up for making 3 fermented things in one night. So I decided to combine the peppers and cabbage into one ferment and make a spicy Sriracha inspired Sauerkraut instead!

Go ahead sir and take that tie off, things are about to get hot! 

Now lets go to the red room (my kitchen, not the one Pitbull sang about in his catchy tune) and take a look at whats in Fifty Shades of Fresno:

Ingredients

• Green Cabbage, shredded - 9.5 lbs 
• Fresno Peppers, stems removed - 1.3 lbs
• Garlic, chopped - 9 cloves (1.5 oz)
• Salt, kosher - 3.7 oz

This equates to about a 2.13% salt brine ratio. I noted the salt type above as kosher only because I normally use sea salt, which I happened to be out of, so I used what I had on hand. But as a tip, if you have the choice, use sea salt.  

Another tip, pay attention in your 2nd grade writing class.

I've tried to make a spicy sauerkraut before, but in that case I got nervous that it would be too hot to eat so I ended up not using as many peppers as I could have, and I even seeded half of the ones I used.  This time, however, I threw caution to the wind and blended up every pepper I had, seeds and all!

Then I put my head over the bowl to have a look when my eyes instantly caught fire.

At that point I took my contacts out (for fear of going blind removing them later) and started mixing the shredded cabbage, garlic, peppers, and salt in batches in the crock, packing it down before mixing more on top.

After it was all packed in I stepped back and looked at my creation with excitement and fear. Had I put in too many peppers? Was it going to be edible?

Should I have drank that many beers while I was making it?

In any event it was too late to turn back now, so I pressed it down with the weights, put a cover on it, and sent it to the basement to ferment for the next month.

And ferment it did. My daughter and I went down to check on it about a week in and it was bubbling like gangbusters, with a crazy looking orange brine to remind you of how hot it was going to be.

It also reminded me of the Nickelodeon logo, which made me feel happy on the inside.

After 4 weeks I packed it into jars, put some ridiculous labels on them, and then gave it a try. So how did it come out? Hot. Extremely hot. Like fiery hot. I'm not sure of how else to say this and make it sound graceful (en fuego?).

I took one bite and spent the next 5 minutes breathing a fireball (there's that Pitbull again). Although I didn't come up with the name for this one (thank you David), it ended up fitting this kraut perfectly! Just like the movie it is hot, intense, over the top, and embarrassing to watch with your parents (OK, the last one just pertains to the movie).

It's also not as crunchy as I like my kraut. I'm not entirely sure why that is. It could be from using kosher salt instead of sea salt, it could be the salt % was too low (2.25% is often the standard used), and even more likely it could be because we're in the dead of summer right now and the warm weather made the kraut ferment a little too fast.

That's not to say its bad. Its still perfectly edible (apart from that fiery hot thing I mentioned), its just not what I consider ideal. Its closer to the texture of store bought kraut from a can. But fear not, if you end up with a jar and the texture isn't too your liking just cook with it. You can use it in a fritatta, fry it in a pan with potatoes, or add it to soups.

With the summer heat in full swing though I will be taking a break from making any kraut until things cool off in the fall. But don't worry, I've got plenty of summer veggies to ferment. Now its back to the red room with me!