A winter crock of goodness

Root veggies are some of my favorite things in the world. I really love beets and rutabagas. Maybe it's my Polish heritage... I don't know. Back in December, I picked up some rutabagas and radishes from my CSA at their extended season sale. I left them in the fridge for about 6 weeks while I had sauerkraut fermenting and I finally got around to using them in a proper ferment. I had some kohlrabi and celerac in the fridge so I put them in the mix as well.

The starting ingredients



The implements of destruction



I peeled everything. I grated the rutabagas and celerac with the box grater. This really opened up a lot of cells and the grated mass started weeping even beofre I added salt. I did though salt the mass liberally and a sweet, salty brine developed. Rutabagas have a great natural sweetness especially when their season can be extended.

The radishes were a variety called a watermelon radish. Peeling the green outer skin revealed a wonderful, watermelon-like interior with a purple-ish red core transitioning to a white meat just inside the green skin. They were rather mild and themselves had a touch of a sweet note.

The radishes and kohlrabi were sliced using the box grater and added to the grated rutabagas and celerac. A touch more salt was added and I tossed the mixture well.

This is this final unfermented product

I packed it into my crock. There was a good deal of brine already forming, but I was a bit concerned that the root veggies were a bit old, so I mixed up a quart of a simple salt water mixture and added that to the crock to submerge the solids and the weight stones completely.

Since I had just moved sauerkraut from the fermeter, I had some reserved brine that I added just to jump start fermentation. I covered the crock, filled the gas lock and set it to ferment.

All in all the process took about 90 minutes including cleaning and prepping the veggies and packing the crock. I look forward to how this one turns out.

I do have a concern about using the box grater. I'm worried that the grater opened up too many cells in the rutabaga and celerac and thus that the final product will lack texture. Only time will tell.