There is an entire WORLD of food preservation we have completely missed!

[Chotu]

I like to make a lot of Ramens. I put them in my deep freezer in a concentrated way so they don’t take up too much space. Then later when I am boiling up noodles to eat with them I put the right amount of water in the noodles so I can just dump the big block of ice in there with the Ramen base and ingredients. Very convenient. Super tasty. Warms the bones on chilly days.

One of the ingredients for my Ramen is Napa cabbage. Also known as Chinese cabbage when you are in Asia. I also use leeks.

Over the years I have changed around to various types of cooking that catch my interest.. Different ethnicities. It’s really fun to know how to cook from all over the world. It’s one of my favorite things. It’s a great hobby of mine to be able to reproduce foods that people’s grandmothers made in their home countries or sometimes a food that I really like from eating at interesting restaurants.

I just made a chicken biryani pretty recently. It wasn’t that great. Still a lot of work to do on that. Too much cardamom. Not enough deep flavor whatever that is. My daal is a lot better. I’ll include a picture of cooking the chicken biryani but that’s not the point of the thread.

The point of the thread is we missed an entire WORLD of food preservation when we talk about how to keep foods on our boats long-term.

I had some Napa cabbage/Chinese cabbage left over from making my Ramen base. Sometimes I use it in sandwiches in place of lettuce because it lasts longer. But it was getting tired. It was drying out. Do you know what partially dry cabbage is good for?

KIMCHI!!!!!!

We don’t even talk about fermented food preservation on this forum at all. I don’t know why we have missed it. Kimchi is awesome. It tastes great. It’s a wonderful little snack or side dish. I think there’s even a very popular TikTok thing right now that shows how to use kimchi in a grilled cheese sandwich.

I wanted to make it just because I like it. But then I realize i had a whole bunch of Napa cabbage just sitting there starting to dry out. And that’s exactly what you need for kimchi. Typically you put salt on it to pull water out of it before you process it into kimchi. Mine was already drying out a bit from sitting in the refrigerator a while. So it was perfect.

It only took about 15 minutes to make. And it will preserve my Napa cabbage for at least six months. I don’t know how long. But supposedly it last about six months.

For a lighter fermentation taste, you put it in the refrigerator after a couple days of fermenting out on the counter. In the old days in Korea they just left it out the whole time. It got pretty ripe. Lol. But I think I like it a little less fermented.

This is a fairly high sodium thing. And I can’t have high sodium. So a good way to get a starter for it and keep the bacteria correct is to use some of that water that appears on the top of yogurt. Do you know that stuff? The whey? That’s full of lactobacillus. And that’s the bacteria you need to use to ferment your kimchi.

Their traditional technique uses lots of salt. I can’t have that.

Anyway. That’s a long rambling post. But we have completely missed the idea of fermenting our foods to preserve them! I don’t know why. We have talked about dehydrating, canning, freezing, etc. But never fermentation. It’s a perfectly viable way to preserve vegetables. But it also works for fish and beef. There are kimchi recipes that include fresh fish or beef in them. So you can preserve meat and vegetables over the long-haul for months on end. Amazing!

First picture are some of the spices getting ready for the chicken biryani. Second picture and third picture are the kimchi I just made.

[Boatguy30]

So you made it with the yogurt water stuff?

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by Boatguy30

So you made it with the yogurt water stuff?

Yup.

When I cook something new, I usually refer to at least half a dozen recipes, picking and choosing the best parts.

One of the recipes was for a low sodium kimchi. The person used the Lactobacillus bacteria from yogurt in order to make sure it goes the right way on fermentation. They used the whey that forms in a hole you dig in yogurt.

so I definitely incorporated that into mine, taking the place of some of the water.

The rest of it was traditional Korean kimchi. The gouchugaro pepper is the key ingredient to get the flavor right. Any old red pepper won't do. This stuff is mild (for red pepper) and very flavorful.

[PineappleOrange]

Unless I'm mistaken, the kimchi needs to remain submerged, so make sure you got enough juices

[wholybee]

I have fermented both sauerkraut and pickles before. And "spicy carrots" fermented with chilli peppers added to the brine is quite tasty. Somewhere in storage I have a book on fermented foods.

The process is that the bacteria makes the brine acidic, and the acid preserves the food. That is why you can make quick pickles with vinegar. Yogart "water" sounds like a neat shortcut, getting real fermentation without the salt.

I was more into that when I lived in my house. Fermenting, Canning, brewing beer, making wine. It was just too much equipment to bring along on my boat.

[wholybee]

Originally Posted by PineappleOrange

Unless I'm mistaken, the kimchi needs to remain submerged, so make sure you got enough juices

This is true of all fermented vegetables. I would put a shot glass in the jar just before I put the lid on. The shot glass would hold the vegetables under the brine. It also created an air pocket so the air-lock worked better.

In case you are not familiar, the best way to ferment uses an air lock/bubbler, so that gasses can escape the jar, but fresh air cannot escape. It's usually a little bubbler device that inserts into a hole in the lid, and fills with water. The shot glass helps that device work better.

[s/v Jedi]

We were fermenting sauerkraut until we discovered that the canned sauerkraut sold at ALDI tastes as good as our home made

[Chotu]

I don’t know about that underwater stuff for kimchi.

It’s not how they have done it in Korea for centuries as far as I can tell.

this was one of my main sources for information on it. This woman seems to know what she’s doing.

there is no water added. It’s just a paste. And you push it down and liquids come out as it ferments.

take a look at her video from 12:00 onward to see.


https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_con...ture=emb_title

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by wholybee

I have fermented both sauerkraut and pickles before. And "spicy carrots" fermented with chilli peppers added to the brine is quite tasty. Somewhere in storage I have a book on fermented foods.

The process is that the bacteria makes the brine acidic, and the acid preserves the food. That is why you can make quick pickles with vinegar. Yogart "water" sounds like a neat shortcut, getting real fermentation without the salt.

I was more into that when I lived in my house. Fermenting, Canning, brewing beer, making wine. It was just too much equipment to bring along on my boat.

no doubt about that. That’s a lot of equipment to bring along. I have done wine before. I have brewed beer as well. Pretty fun stuff. I definitely have my pressure canner here. I haven’t put it to any use because I realized during the pandemic that it's even more autonomous to just have a deep freezer and solar panels. The lids for the jars sold out during the pandemic and we couldn’t can. So that was a big wake up call.

i’m thinking that you probably could also do kimchi as a sourdough type thing. I might have used some Lactobacillus from the yogurt for this one, but once this one is running along, I could take some of it out and use it as a starter for the next one.

what’s really cool about this is there is no equipment involved. And it’s so easy. What a way to preserve vegetables for the long run. Plus I really like the taste of this stuff. Ha ha

It’s definitely a whole world of things that we never really talk about on here when we talk about food preservation though. So I thought it would be useful to make a post on it.

[PippaB]

Sailors have been using fermented preservation since the first cockle shell slid into the water - it's called "beer", a sailor's favorite food

[rslifkin]

I've never tried fermenting my own, but I certainly love pre made fermented stuff (including kimchi and sauerkraut).

[dfelsent]

A traditional sailing food is fermented malted barley or wheat. Often combined with hop flowers it is sometimes called beer.
Seriously tho , bacterial or yeast fermentation is a very old school and often delicious way of preserving food.
Sauerkraut! Buttermilk! Kimchi! Miso! Bread! Vinegar! Cheese!Yoghurt! Chocolate! And more!!!!
Chotu is correct that in North America we often forget about fermentation.

[SeanPatrick]

Originally Posted by Chotu

There are kimchi recipes that include fresh fish or beef in them.

Bulgogi is one of my favorites. Damn, now I want bulgogi.

[AKA-None]

There is a series on Netflix about various regional foods that are fermented
Very interesting watch

[Chotu]

The Kimchi is goooooooood!!!

I just put it in the refrigerator and had a couple bites while it was going in. Perfect. Maybe just a little too hot for me. But really good.