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RE: Steemit Iron Chef 2018 Act 01 Round 03 : Oi Sobagi (Cucumber Kimchi)

in #steemit-ironchef • 7 years ago (edited)

This looks amazing. I love Korean pickles and your version is making me crave them. I have not made pickles like this yet. I have a few questions.

  1. When you salted the cucumbers, it looked like there were some dark specks in the salt. Is that pepper?
  2. I did not know that the gas would escape from a gasket. Is this method better than using an airlock?
  3. After fermentation began you said that the jar filled with brine and you were able to "pack some more into it...". Do you mean you added additional brine? or you were able to get all the vegetables submerged?

Thanks for your help. I would like to get started making pickles like these. Good luck in SIC!

7 years ago in #steemit-ironchef by
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     7 years ago 
    1. I typically use RealSalt which has a bunch of minerals in it. That's what you're seeing. It's a super-raw salt dug out of the Utah desert. I like the nutritional philosophy behind it, but the truth is, it leaves a bunch of grit behind that doesn't dissolve, and sometimes that's not what you want. :-)
    2. I do a whole lot of my fermenting in Fido brand jars by the Italian glass company Bormioli Rocco. They have a rubber gasket that acts very much like an airlock and are quite inexpensive. The metal wire that makes up the 'bail-top' mechanism does degrade over time -- gets sort of rough and corroded with washings, but I've been using them for something like seven years and none have actually failed yet, so it isn't too bad. I like the fact that I get the benefits of a water-based airlock, without the overhead space being taken up. That's useful on shelves or in the fridge.
      2a) There is also a whole slew of products that bring a gasket-style airlock to canning jars. I have one set of Easy Fermenter lids that work quite well, though I can't say for sure that they're better than any other similar product on the market. (A side benefit of these Easy Fermenters, is that the canning jars then stack, so if you're using the short-fat pint jars, you can pile them up on the shelves while your produce ages.
    3. The batch of Oi Sobagi that I made was too large to all fit in that 3-liter jar when I was first packing it. So I left some in a tupperwareish thing. The next day, when I was plating up my entry, the cukes in the jar had all shrunk and produced a bunch of extra brine. So I plated the above dish from the plastic tub and then was able to shove all that was left into the jar, pressing down, which causes the brine level to rise and mix with the veggie-pepper paste, helping to preserve the fermenting produce and also spread flavors. I didn't add any extra brine. (Keeping fermenting produce covered in brine is one of the laws that many, many people follow dogmatically, but I've found in these gasket-topped jars, so long as I'm not opening and reclosing them, the headspace becomes all CO2 and prevents any pathogens from prospering -- so I'm not as anal about it as I am with an open-top ferment, which I also do.)

    I can talk your ear off about fermenting! :P

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     7 years ago 

    Further regarding the RealSalt -- in the image above, the salt looks a little pink. That's true color, not some image artifact. It's pinkish (like high-end Himalayan salt) with dark red flecks. Here's a breakdown of the mineral contents.

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     7 years ago 

    Wow, Great information. I learned a lot. I need to check out real salt, the fido jars, easy fermenter lids and the Himalayan salt. I appreciate the detailed answer. I am a detail person too. It is cool that you can talk forever about fermenting. I do the same thing with topics that I'm really into. Thanks again.

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