In my family, you always eat sauerkraut on New Year’s day to ensure a prosperous New Year. This tradition has been passed down through generations of my dad’s family. When my grandmother died, my dad took over the reigns as the chef on New Year’s. He’s developed his own special recipe that’s quite tasty, even for non-sauerkraut lovers. If you’d like to see his recipe check out my New Year’s Day post.
Several years ago, when we started to eat more locally, I started making the kraut for our New Year’s meal. I typically start the kraut in October so it has 4-6 weeks to ferment. But you still have time to get a batch in before the holiday!
Sauerkraut that ferments at cooler temperatures – 65 or lower – has the best flavor, color and vitamin C content. The fermentation process takes longer at these temperatures, around 4-6 weeks. That’s probably why it’s traditionally made in the fall. Looks like I’m making mine at the right time, it should be ready in December and waiting in the fridge for New Years!
Making sauerkraut is quite easy all you need is cabbage (red or green), salt, and time (generally 3 T of salt for each 5 lbs of cabbage). Slice up the cabbage as thinly as you’d like, I usually do some really thin and some thick for variety. Transfer some sliced cabbage to a big glass bowl and sprinkle it with salt, then smash with a wooden spoon or potato masher and mix. Continue adding cabbage and salt and mixing and smashing until the bowl is half full. At this point I usually let the cabbage sit for 10-15 minutes to wilt because this makes it easier to pack into the jar I use as a fermenting crock. If I had a big crock I’d salt and smash right in the crock.
Transfer the cabbage to a jar or crock, smash it down and continue working until all the cabbage is salted, smashed and packed into the jar. Let the cabbage sit overnight, if the brine hasn’t covered the cabbage make some brine (1.5 T of salt to 1 quart of water) and pour over the cabbage. Weigh the cabbage down to keep it submerged below the brine. Some people use a Ziploc bag filled with brine, I use a canning jar to weigh down the cabbage because I’m not comfortable using plastic. Let it sit for 4-6 weeks until it stops bubbling and it tastes like sauerkraut. Make sure you check the kraut every couple days and add brine if the level goes down. I typically end up adding some several times during fermentation. After 4-6 weeks (or less if it’s warmer) you’ll have kraut (taste to see if it’s done). You really can’t get much simpler. When it’s finished store in the fridge and enjoy whenever you want. You can enjoy cold as is or cook it in recipes. You really can’t get much simpler.
When I was making this I thought about all the women in past generations of my family that spent time each fall making sauerkraut for New Year’s. Connecting with our food heritage is such a wonderful thing. Hopefully our nieces & nephew will grow up with fond memories of eating Grandpa’s Famous Sauerkraut on New Year’s and continue the tradition with their families.
Do you have a specific food or recipe that has been passed down through the generations of your family?
Salt + Cabbage + Time = Sauerkraut
December 2, 2009 by chiotsrun
My goodness the cook looks serious! 😉
I love sauerkraut…
Yes we eat raisin pie…not sour cream raisin but the raisin recipe that used to be on the back of the SunMaid Raisins decades ago. 4 generations so far are hooked! Kim
I am just wondering…. what do you do with the kraut on that day? I mean like your menu. Do you cook sausages in it, or put it into a sandwich such as a Ruben sandwich, or as a side dish with blackeyed peas, etc. -OR—? We are from the south so we always have reconstituted dried blackeyed peas and usually rice. Sometimes together like Hoppin’John. Our son-in-laws family in Kentucky always had corned beef. He and our daughter carry on that tradition.
My dad cooks it in a big pot and adds caraway, tomatoes, apples and other goodies and then adds ribs. He cooks in for several hours until the meat starts falling off the bone. Then we top with dumplings (his recipe and directions can be found through the link in the first paragraph).
Traditionally, in my family it’s served with a side of mashed potatoes.
Was that last picture the ‘finished’ product? I’ve been trying to do homemade sauerkraut for months now and have pitched three batches because I just don’t know what it is supposed to look like/taste like. I’ve only ever had the canned grocery store stuff. My ‘finished’ product has been a bit milky-looking each time, but has (to me, at least) smelled and tasted great. My husband said it smelled way too vinegary. Help?
If your sauerkraut tastes good then it’s good! You’ll know if it’s not right because it will taste off, kind of moldy. It will probably be more sour than the grocery store kind because it’s naturally fermented. You can taste along the way and finish it off before it gets super sour, just put it in the fridge to stop fermentation or can. We usually cook our finished kraut with tomatoes, apples and pork, so we don’t generally eat it plain. There’s a great recipe in “The Joy of Pickling” for a sweeter kraut that your husband may like more. You can probably just add some sugar to the final product though to cut the vinegaryness of it.
The last photo isn’t the finished product, it’s what it looks like at the beginning of the cycle. I just had a batch finish, I’ll see if I can get some photos of it to compare with the beginning stage photos for all you guys.
[…] 16, 2009 by chiotsrun After receiving many questions about knowing when the saurkraut is finished fermenting I decided to do a post about it. I finished off my kraut this morning and took a few photos to […]