by Ben Reade.
One of the big challenges in any kitchen if finding uses for what is normally viewed as waste. We have been going through lots of beetroot juice, so this left us with lots and lots of tiny shavings of beet.
This is still in an early experimental stage, it hasn’t gone on long enough to be really good yet, but with the 2% salt which has been added, Coliform bacteria which, as the envirnoment acidifies will give way to Leuconostoc which will preserve the beets by acidifying and change the flavour by metabolizing the various sugars etc which can be found in the vegetable. 2% salt is a pretty standard quantity for adding to a vegetable for lactic fermentation, we’ve found vacpac bags really useful for this kind of thing, they dont take up much space and they dont smell! Try it, get a thinly sliced cabbage, a grated beetroot, carrot, apple or a mixture of the above, add 2% salt and put it in a pot with a weight on top, or in a vacuum bag. leave at room temperature for 1-4 weeks or longer and enjoy!