(no subject)
Sep. 12th, 2019 09:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tree_and_leafApparently green beans can be very successfully air-dried and rehydrated as required.
No reason to mention this, of course....
No reason to mention this, of course....
tree_and_leaftree_and_leafregna
(no subject)
Date: 2019-09-12 11:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-09-14 02:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-09-14 04:17 pm (UTC)Off the top of my head: 1:20 ratio of salt to veg (so take weight of veg and use 5% of that as salt) or a little less will give you lactic acid fermentation, i.e. sauerkraut and its ilk. You need to make sure the veg stay under the brine (which is produced naturally, do not add water) or the top bit goes off and can ruin the whole batch, there are special weights etc you can buy but rocks will do, don't use anything metallic though. Keeps for weeks or months, allegedly good for gut health.
5% to 20% salt: not a great idea, slows down lactic acid fermentation, but still allows other nasties to grow.
25% salt and above: basically replaces the liquid in the veg with brine, keeps for months or years, you will almost certainly need to soak the veg in a few changes of fresh water to make them edible but then they are allegedly superior to frozen or canned. The classic to store this way is green beans. Preserved lemons also use something like this method. I stored several kilos of chestnuts this way in 2004, it worked.
In all of these, slice the veg fairly finely first (half a cm thick should be OK, so not-gigantic green beans are fine as-is). Storing somewhere cool is best, but if you have the right salt ratio, actual refrigeration shouldn't be necessary.
Best to use pure sea salt or rock salt or similar, not iodised salt, and not table salt with anti-caking agents. (But if you do absolutely have to use those for dry salting because you can't get other ingredients, just... use a bunch more salt, like 30% or 33%, and it should be okay.)
Advantages: - still works if you live in a damp English house in a damp English town - in salt-curing (>25% salt) you can pretty much tell if something has gone wrong, because it'll smell... funky - doesn't require you to decorate all your radiators with strings of veg for weeks on end - way less time consuming than canning or hot-pickling (which is a whole other thing) - doesn't require fuel at all - salt is still pretty cheap - cheap plastic containers are just fine - works for low-acid veg that can't be canned in a boiling water bath - if you salt mixed veg you can basically rinse the worst of the salt off, add water, and now you have soup
Disadvantages: - if you are planning to do this on any large scale, you will need a metric fucktonne of salt, and it feels a bit silly to have that much salt in stock and then not use it - not good to feed these foods to people with sodium-sensitive hypertension (which isn't most people, to be fair, but still) - not great for very wet vegetables like tomatoes - I'm just someone on the internet so you probably shouldn't trust me, but it's very hard to find instructions on this online that aren't all about sterilising the jars or refrigerating your lactic acid ferment or whatever.
I think I first read about this in "The Self-sufficient Gardener" by John Seymour (I think), prod me next week -ish and I can check.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-09-15 12:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-09-13 05:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-09-14 02:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-09-13 07:27 am (UTC)Local veg bloke went weekly rather than fortnightly because this is the time of year he has food, and I am not getting through it but need to find a way of preserving stuff before we are back to fortnightly cabbage and swede.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-09-14 02:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-09-13 04:45 pm (UTC)I can't bring myself to believe that Britain produces half the food they eat.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-09-14 02:48 pm (UTC)