Sauerkraut

 This morning while shopping I bought a really decent sized white cabbage. They were only 59p each so we chose the biggest one we could find as I wanted to make some sauerkraut. Usually we leave the big ones for families though we haven't bought a cabbage in months as we've been eating our own fresh picked from the garden. I picked the last two red cabbages from the garden veg plot and then turned them all into sauerkraut.

Beautiful red cabbage fresh from the garden

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I sliced both varieties of cabbage and placed them in a large glass bowl. There was nearly 800g of cabbage so I scattered a tablespoon of salt over all the cabbage and massaged the salt into the cabbage until a brine was starting to form in the bottom of the bowl.  Then I transferred the cabbage and brine into a jar and pressed it down really hard to take the air pockets out of the mix.

While it was in the jar I used my rolling pin to press it firmly down under the brine

I'd kept a leaf back at the start to cover the cabbage in the jar and to help hold it down under the liquid.

Push the spare cabbage leaf really well down in the brine

I used a glass weight on top of the cabbage leaf to keep it all under the brine and now I've set it to ferment on my countertop with the lid ever so slightly opened to let the gases out of the jar. It'll be ready in about ten days and will keep for months in the fridge once it's had a week on the countertop to ferment

By the time it's ready the brine and the green cabbage will have turned pink as they absorb the juice from the red cabbage.