About a month or so ago, I turned two lovely, fresh, full heads of red cabbage, straight from the veggie patch, into a decent sized pile of sauerkraut. Not only does it look like precious stones with a beautiful rich translucent colour, it also tastes amazing and has the most incredible, funky stank going on. One of the better things I've ever made, and only my second try at sauerkraut! Obviously I'm pretty happy with myself, but we have one more cabbage left! I want to do something more interesting with it than sauerkraut, though. Any suggestions for other pickled cabbage based foods? I have a nice big porcelain fermenting/pickling crock which is currently empty so it's the perfect opportunity. One head will only fill it about a quarter or so, so there's plenty of room to fit more stuff in. I would do something kimchi-inspired, but one of the people who'd be eating it Does Not do chili. I also have loads of carrot available so that might be an option (dad has done the pickled cabbage + daikon that's often put in banh mi which turned out really well when I made some baguettes for a banh mi lunch for extended family)
Thoughts?
I had one batch of sauerkraut that smelled pretty funky but was normal consistency-wise, and I ate it and it was fine, maybe the funkiness even add something to it. But usually it just comes out smelling sour and not very funky. Definitely something other than lactobacteria was growing in that batch.
Also did red cabbage sauerkraut once and while it is good and interesting and cannot be bought anywhere, I still prefer white.
This just smells and tastes like a stronger and stinkier (and fartier...) sauerkraut than anything I can buy, it's not funky the way, like, blue cheese is. I'm pretty sure it's a proper lacto ferment. I may try making a white cabbage sauerkraut and comparing them but the red is from our garden so it's hard to beat, plus as I say very pretty! (Which I find especially fun in such a... Rustic? Food).
Interesting that the white cabbage makes a nicer sauerkraut, I do feel like the red are better in slaw/salads generally. Could just be an artifact of getting all my red cabbage extremely fresh.
Yeah it's probably fine. On my funky batch, the head was sitting around a bit before I used it. Looked fine but just slightly less crispy. The sauerkraut smelled not totally unlike kimchi, less strong though, or maybe you could say there was a hint of farts and beer or something like that. Not exactly unpleasant, just unusual. My best guess is that some yeast started to do its thing but was then snuffed out by the acid, but idk I'm not an expert.
Edit: There's a brand of salt-fermented pickles here, which for some reason they then put in vinegar (why?), which also has a similar farty smell. Pretty strong actually, not a fan.
Maybe it's just that I'm used to white cabbage sauerkraut, and associate red cabbage with the traditional recipe around here ("Blaukraut"), where you take the fresh shredded red cabbage and boil it very soft, with onions and sugar and often apples. Still the fact that white cabbage is the only sauerkraut you can buy makes me think that white cabbage sauerkraut is pretty universally preferred.