Fermenting Archives - Urban Homesteading

Category: Fermenting

How to Make Fermented Snap Peas

Posted on August 31, 2024August 31, 2024 by craig

Snap peas or sugar snap peas are one of those “blink and you’ll miss them” kind of produce. While they’re not quite as quickly there-and-gone as things like cherries, they do have a relatively short span of time in which they produce peas, and it’s fairly difficult to maintain that freshness of snap peas for any length of time. Thus the culinary experience of munching on sugar snap peas with roasted garlic hummus is a treat for my family for a few weeks mid-summer.

For long-term storage of snap peas, I shell them and put the peas in a bag and then in the freezer. While we no longer have the whole shell to eat, we at least have peas to keep us stocked throughout the year. (This year I’m attempting pea pod wine with the discard shells—look for a potential update on that in the winter!)

There’s a recipe for preserving snap peas I’ve been eyeing for a while and have finally tried—fermented snap peas.

Fermentation is the process of fostering an environment for beneficial bacteria to take hold in a food and choke out any bad bacteria. Fermented foods can then be stored for quite some time in the fridge, sometimes as long as several months, depending on the specific fermented food.

Fermented foods are loaded with probiotics and eating these foods can contribute to a healthy gut microbiome, which can have a broad impact on general health, including boosting the immune system. Fermented foods can also be easier to digest, which may be of benefit to some folks, and which can also increase nutrient absorption.

But, really, when you find a good recipe, fermented foods can be just darn delicious. Every week I make a batch of kombucha, which is a fermented tea-based beverage, and we drink it regularly.

So when I finally came across this recipe for fermented peas, it checked off a long list of things I was looking for—a new food preservation project, a way to preserve snap peas beyond their small window, and a delicious new food.

The science and art of fermentation

I’ve spoken before about how fermentation is both a science and an art, and it was me eventually coming to understand that symbiosis that led me understand the appeal of fermentation. The science is fairly basic—you use a saltwater brine (or just salt in the case of some foods like cabbage) to create an environment conducive to beneficial bacteria. These bacteria will thrive and outcompete the bad bacteria. That’s the science of it.

The art is where things can get a bit creative. You can flavour your fermented foods in a million different ways. For these fermented snap peas, I threw in some red pepper flakes and a heavy dash of Italian seasoning for some hot Italian snap peas. However, I could have instead thrown in some dill and peppercorns, or some sliced garlic, or the spices used in bread and butter pickles to make bread and butter snap peas.

How to ferment snap peas

The process is pretty simple and mostly requires patience.

You will need a fermentation vessel. I have a cool little Mason Tops kit that has a straight-sided jar, a glass weight, and an airlock for the top. You can also make do with any jar, a Ziploc bag filled with water as a weight, and a loose-fitting lid to act as a makeshift airlock. And, really, given how the peas are packed tightly and unlikely to float, you could probably skip the weight altogether.

Once you’ve got your fermentation vessel selected, start by putting any spices and seasonings in the bottom of the vessel. Then cram the peas in there. You’ll likely want to put them vertically so it’s easier to fill the narrow gaps with pea pods. (If you just dump the peas in, they’re not likely to be tightly packed and the brine you add won’t cover your peas.)

Unfortunately, I forgot to take any photos of this process for this blog. 🙃

In a bowl, combine water and salt (quantities listed in the recipe card below) and stir until all the salt has dissolved. This is your brine for fermenting. Pour the brine over the peas and ensure they are fully covered by brine. If not, you may need to push the peas further down or make more brine to top it up.

Put the weight on top of the peas, close the jar, and let sit in a cool, dark place to ferment. Fermentation will take several days. (If you’re using a regular lid and not one with a built-in airlock / air release, you will want to ensure the lid is loose-fitting to prevent gas buildup. Still, you may want to briefly and very quickly open the lid once a day to vent gasses.)

You’ll know it’s fermenting because of the bubbles that form and rise to the top. After several days, the peas should be ready. There’s no real test of readiness for fermented foods and it’s sort of a “how does it taste” assessment. Fermentation with saltwater creates a vinegar, so the peas should taste pickled, but the degree of “pickle-ness” is up to you. Once you determine it’s ready you can remove the weight and store the jar in the fridge. It should last several months.

How to use fermented snap peas

It was recently pointed out to me that while my recipes sound tasty, some of them would benefit from a section on how to use them—so welcome to a brand new feature to my recipe pages!

There are a variety of ways to use fermented snap peas:

When I do a BBQ or a dinner for a group of people, my appetizer is usually a baked brie with crackers, and whatever random pickles and preserves I have in my fridge. So this would go great paired with a baked brie, pickled beets, and sugar-fermented blueberries or Saskatoons.
Depending on how you flavour them, they would go great as a side of topping for dinner. I made spicy pickled snap peas with cayenne pepper and Italian seasoning, so it would go great paired with a stir-fry (the spice is more prominent than the Italian seasoning). If you’re eating fermented foods for the beneficial probiotic bacteria, you’ll likely want to add the peas when serving rather than cooking them in the stir fry, since the heat may kill the probiotic bacteria.
Fermented snap peas would also make a wonderful addition to a packed lunch or a bento box, as a vegetable side with a bit of a kick.

Fermented Snap Peas

Fermenting is a great way to preserve snap peas for months beyond their season. Plus, they're tasty!

5 from 1 vote

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Prep Time 10

Fermentation 7

Course Appetizer

Equipment

Fermentation Vessel, with Weight and Airlock

Ingredients

2 cups Water
1 Tbsp Sea Salt
2 cups Snap Peas
Seasonings, To Taste (see notes)

Instructions

Make the brine by combining water and salt, stirring until salt is dissolved.
Place seasonings in the bottom of the fermentation vessel. See notes for some ideas for seasonings.
Tightly pack peas into the fermentation vessel and cover with brine until peas are submerged. If peas are not submerged, you may need to pack them down tighter or add more brine. Putting the fermentation weight on top may push the peas down too.
Put the weight and lid on and store in a cool, dark place to allow peas to ferment. Check daily. You should see bubbles form after a few days; this is from fermentation.
Start tasting the peas after 5-7 days and then taste daily until desired fermentation has been reached. Once done, store peas in the fridge.

Notes

Spice options:

Spicy: 1 tsp red pepper flakes and 1tsp Italian seasoning
Garlicky: 1-2 garlic cloves, sliced, and 1 tsp peppercorns
Bread and Butter: 1 tsp mustard seeds, 1/4 tsp celery seeds, 1/4 tsp turmeric

Fermentation vessel:

If you don’t have a fermentation vessel you can use any large jar. In place of a weight, you can use a Ziplock bag filled with water or, if it fits, a small ramekin or other small dish. In place of an airlock lid, you can use a loose-fitting lid, but you may want to vent built-up gasses once per day, even if the lid is loose-fitting.

Keyword fermented snap peas, snap peas

How to Make Fermented Garlic Scape Hot Sauce

Posted on July 20, 2024July 20, 2024 by craig

The garlic scapes are up and this year we got quite the haul, coming in at around 1.5 kg, or about three pounds. Normally we get just a smattering and they’re usually quite thin, but this year we have at least double the garlic planted and these scapes grew nice and thick.

Scapes are the flower stem of the garlic plant. They grow nice and tall and then curl in on themselves. At the end is a bulb that will form garlic seeds. Once that bulb flowers, the garlic bulb underground will stop growing, so you want to harvest the scape before that happens.

In my previous post about pickling garlic scapes, I talked in depth about the process of harvesting them. In a short summary, you’ll want to cut or break the scape where it emerges from the top leaf of the plant.

Scapes have a strong garlic taste and can be used multiple ways. They grill up great on the BBQ, they have a wonderful garlic bite to them when you pickle them, they make a zesty pesto, and there’s a garlic scape jam I want to try next year that I think would go great on a baked Brie.

Garlic scape hot sauce

A few years ago I tried doing the farmers market thing, selling jams, pickles, and preserves. It was an interesting experience but ultimately not one I’ll likely return to. While there, I made some great connections with local food folks and got to try some amazing foods.

A highlight for me was the garlic scape hot sauce that I bought from the hot sauce guy. While his prices are affordable and I continue to buy garlic scape hot sauce off him, it was a hot sauce I wanted to see if I could make myself.

In my research on garlic scape hot sauce recipes I found that there’s almost nothing. I did come across one fermented garlic scape hot sauce recipe, and so my variation is based on that one.

I made a couple alterations in the batch I made for this post and have noted further alterations for next year’s batch that I’ll make. The recipe on this post is for what I’d do next year.

The art of fermenting

Fermenting is very much a science. You create an ideal environment for beneficial bacteria to thrive, which then outcompetes bad bacteria, preserving food for weeks, months, or even longer.

Because of this careful balance needed and the fact that this whole preservation method relies on bacteria, I’d always been quite intimidated by it. I’d follow recipes to the T and never vary.

A couple years back, a local chef loaned me a copy of The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz and even on just the cursory flip-through that I gave it, the book opened my eyes to the fact that while fermenting is very much a science, it is also very much an art. As long as you’re following the basic science of fermenting, there’s tons of wiggle room to customize what you’re creating and make culinary works of art.

This recipe relies on creating a salt brine with water and submerging the foods in it. (Versus something like sauerkraut that relies on salt drawing the moisture out of cabbage so it’s in a salt brine of its own juices.)

That brine will create the environment for beneficial bacteria to thrive, allowing us to then create some artistic customization in what is being fermented.

Making the ferment

Before we start making the ferment, we’ll want a vessel to do the ferment in. I have a Mason Tops fermenting kit that comes with a jar, an airlock lid, and a glass weight. Here are some kits on Amazon that can be adapted with a regular mason jar. In a pinch, you can jerry-rig a ferment vessel by using a mason jar, a Ziploc bag of water as a weight, and a loose-fitting lid that will keep bad bacteria out but still allow venting of gas.

The first step is prepare the veggies going into the ferment. This recipe calls for 175 grams each of garlic scapes and jalapeno peppers. The scapes can be chopped up in small pieces. The exact sizing doesn’t matter too much because at the end you’ll be pureeing everything. The peppers can be stemmed and then sliced in half—and keep the seeds so they add heat to the sauce. They can be chopped up smaller if you’re having difficulty getting everything nicely in the ferment vessel.

While the recipe calls for jalapeno peppers, you can use any green-coloured hot pepper. This is a hot sauce that gets its kick from the garlic scapes, so it’s more of a flavour with heat than pure heat. That being said, with my initial taste-test of the final product, I felt it wasn’t quite hot enough, so next year I’ll look at either a hotter pepper or adding more jalapenos.

And while ideally you want a green-coloured hot pepper, this is purely to maintain the green colour in the final hot sauce. If you don’t care so much about the colour, you could put in any hot pepper of your choice. I grew some scotch bonnet hot peppers and discovered they have an interesting flavour along with their intense heat—they’d go quite well here, but the green scapes and red pepper might create a muddied colour.

In a pinch, if you don’t have fresh hot peppers, you could use pickled hot peppers, but I would add them at the blender step. After the full ferment, you add some vinegar before you blend it, so you could add pickled hot peppers at this stage.

Anyway, back to the ferment!

Put the scapes and jalapenos in your ferment vessel and then chop and add a few green onions.

Now we’ll create the brine, which should be 2% by weight. To do this, add two teaspoons of salt to two cups of water, and heat it in a pot, stirring until the salt dissolves. Allow the water to cool a bit and then pour it into the ferment vessel, ensuring everything is submerged. If you add the brine immediately after boiling, the heat may kill the beneficial bacteria you’re trying to help.

Add the fermenting weight on top, as well as the airlock, and store in a cool, dry, dark place for 7-10 days. You may want to put a plate or bowl under it as ferments sometimes bubble over. You can check on it every few days; if you see bubbles, you know it’s working and it’s fermenting. After seven days, start tasting the scapes to see if you’ve got a good taste going. Mine took eight days.

Once things taste ideal—and this is another place where the art of fermenting comes in since “ideal” is completely up to you—the ferment is done and we can move on to making the hot sauce.

Turning the ferment into hot sauce

Strain the ferment, reserving the liquid.

The scapes, peppers, and green onions are then put into a blender. (If possible, use an actual blender. I used an immersion blender / stick blender and it didn’t work that well, so next time I’ll dig out the actual blender.) Add in half a cup of vinegar and 2/3 cup of the brine.

The choice of vinegar is up to you. The original recipe calls for apple cider vinegar, but I found the apple taste clashed with the garlic and jalapeno. I’d strongly suggest white vinegar or unseasoned rice vinegar, or a vinegar with a complementary flavour profile.

When I make this next year, I’m going to either use my homemade chive blossom vinegar, which would add a chive flavour, or I’d use my homemade sinamak. Sinamak is a Filipino vinegar infusion; white vinegar is infused with hot peppers, ginger, garlic, and black peppercorns. I made a batch a while back with some thai chili peppers and it has a real kick to it that would go fantastic in this hot sauce.

Blend until smooth.

From here, you have two options.

If you like a smooth sauce, you can strain the pureed sauce through a strainer or cheesecloth. If you like a chunkier sauce, you can transfer the whole thing to a jar as-is.

The original recipe calls for the sauce to be strained and then xantham gum to be added, which would thicken it and give it some consistency. I chose to go without the xantham gum and without straining. The hot sauce I buy always needs a good shake because it settles easily, but then you get all those garlicky bits from the pureed scapes and it’s oh-so-good.

Because it’s a ferment that’s ultimately preserved in vinegar, this should last in the fridge for weeks, if not months.

Garlic scape hot sauce can be used the same as any hot sauce, but the garlic taste opens up some ideal pairings. This goes great on any food where garlic is a complementary taste, such as on pizza.