Hello my friends. I hope you are all having a great week. I’ve been working away at my day job and working on my passion project (this blog) when I get home. I love working on this blog. I am so grateful for it and the people who come to my site and learn about fermented foods. It feels good to spread the knowledge about these wonderful foods and share my journey and experiments with you. So thank you for reading.
Many food experiments have been taking place at my house in the last two weeks. I made a holiday fermented relish, sauerkraut with seasonal fruit, I have some green beans fermenting in a jar, onions, carrots, two kinds of kombucha and water kefir. I have so many foods fermenting right now I can hardly keep up with it all. But I love it! So, no matter how crazy it gets I am always having fun.
Eric’s (my husband) parents were here the other weekend and they brought us a giant bag of oranges from their tree. They were AMAZING, super juicy and sweet. I mean, dripping down the side of your mouth juicy. They were so friggin delicious! Naturally I began to dream up all the possible ways I could use them. So I created an Orange Apple Cranberry Sauerkraut, holiday relish and am working on an orange vanilla water kefir. The relish and water kefir recipes are coming soon.
I was a little nervous to use cranberries in the kraut. I have used oranges and apples in my kraut before and those were delicious, but never cranberries. I had no idea what they would taste like, but it turned out great. Besides adding a nice pop of color and holiday charm, they add a little tartness and a touch of complexity to the sauerkraut.
I took my first taste after 6 days and it was bubbly, juicy, sweet, tart and tangy. My husband says it’s my best one yet. I think he says that every time. And we almost finished off one mason jar in a few days. Seriously we have been eating it with everything. Sometimes I eat it with chips. I can’t get enough of this stuff.
The Orange Apple Cranberry Sauerkraut is full of fall flavors and goes well with pulled pork, chicken or as an addition to a salad. With the holidays around the corner this would make a great gift for friends and family. It will also help you beat the holiday bloat due to all the probiotics it contains.
- 1 head of cabbage shredded
- 2 oranges chopped up, peels left on
- 1 cup fresh cranberries
- 4 apples shredded
- 2 teaspoons ginger grated
- 1 tablespoon sea salt
- Pull 3 outer leaves off the head of cabbage and set aside. Shred the remaining cabbage in a food processor, mandolin or chop with a knife. Add the remaining cabbage, shredded apples, ginger and sea salt to a big bowl.
- Massage the cabbage mixture with your hands until it breaks down and becomes soft (about 10 min).
- Place the cranberries and chopped up orange into a food processor and pulse into small chunks. Add this to the bowl with the cabbage and mix and squeeze the mixture together. The cabbage and fruit will have released all its juices at this point and become very wet.
- Pack the cabbage in the mason jar tightly, pushing it all the way down until it submerges in its own juices (this is the brine). Leave about 1½ inches of space from the top of the jar. If there is not enough brine to cover the cabbage, add more brine by combining a teaspoon of sea salt with 1 cup of water.
- Roll up the leaves and place them in the jar to push the cabbage under the brine. Screw on the jar loosely so gas can escape as fermentation takes place. Set on the counter for 7 days in a cool, shaded place. During fermentation the sauerkraut will bubble a little and become cloudy. If scum appears, remove it with a spoon.
- Remove the rolled up cabbage leaves and toss in the garbage before eating.
Resources
Basic Sauerkraut Method for Newbies
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This looks so fabulous!
Thanks Rebecca. I’ve been eating it all week :)
I found a recipe for a cranberry kraut last year after all the crans were gone, this year I have gone wild with them and honestly have decided I might never make kraut without them in there! (not really but onlykinda! :} I am glad to have found your Lab, I have a mad scientist lab of ferments going and love it!!
I wasn’t sure how using cranberries would turn out but it was sucha nice surprise! So happy to know their are other “mad scientists” who experiment with ferments too
I found them to be a superawesome surprise! I also will shred an apple per two cabbage heads in the crankraut and its awesome! I also just made some jars with pomegranate and fennel and am excited and keep staring longingly into the cabinet! :} I am making your persimmon cran orange stuff this afternoon! Thanks for your great ideas!
You are so welcome! I have a bag of cranberries in my fridge just waiting to be made into another batch :) the fennel Pom combo sounds really good. I haven’t tried fermenting fennel yet.
Q…do you leave the peels on the Orange? I remember my mom making a cranberry salad when I was little and she left the peels on the oranges when she ground then up with the cranberries. I’m definitely gonna try this….gotta go get me some mason jars!!
Yes, leave the peels on. They have great orange flavor.
How do you shed the cabbage?
Hi sweetpea, shred the cabbage with either a food processor, a mandolin or you can cut it thinly with a knife.
I may have been a bit overzealous, but I started with this recipe as my very first attempt at sauerkraut. It’s about 4 days into fermenting, and the brine seems to have separated. There’s a thicker creamy liquid and a watery liquid. Not a ton of bubbles. Any thoughts/suggestions?
It’s normal for the cabbage to separate and float a little in the jar. Is it a white foamy liquid on the top? If so you can just scrape that off. If there is no mold it’s most likely fine. Do you have a picture of it? It’s hard to tell what’s going on without seeing it.
Thanks so much for your reply, Danielle! Yay for the interweb actually connecting people. :)
It doesn’t look like mold, and it’s not foamy. It almost looks like the brine is curdled/curdling. Today, same day the photo was taken, is day 6. I’m so grateful for your insight!
Whoops, not sure if the photo uploaded…
It looks like it could be wild yeast growing on top. Try to scrape it off. The kraut should be good underneath, because It looks normal below the curve of the jar. If the kraut underneath smells terrible and is slimy or anything toss it out. Most likely its ok.
Note that cabbage doesn’t smell great which is normal. Kind of like what cooked broccoli smells like when you eat it the next day.
But if it smells foul, like really rotten vegetables then I would throw it out.
Let me know if you have more questions.
Thank you so so much!
Obviously, it’s been awhile since you posted this. I just tried making this several weeks ago. I’m not sure if I did it right. My kraut has a strong bitter flavor, none of that tangy fermented flavor. (Or at least it’s over powered by the bitter.) I let it ferment for a week, 2 of the jars I left out longer by a week, but they are also bitter. Is this normal for this kraut? Should I have left them out even longer since it’s winter and colder? Any thoughts would be helpful. I love the color and the combo of flavors seems like it should be delicious!
The bitter is probably from the orange peels. Cut the amount of orange used Or instead, zest the orange peel to avoid the white, bitter part and squeeze orange juice into the cabbage.
I’m sorry it turned out bitter for you.
Thanks for the quick reply – that makes sense.