The most exquisite pickle: turshi me patëllxhane
Pickled eggplant is so popular in my family, that the word for pickle, turshi, is almost synonymous with eggplants! Summer after summer, for richer or poorer, my mama always preserved several jars of eggplant pickles, olives, amongst others, and they were always gone quickly leaving much anticipation for the next summer season. During college, this was among one of the foods I craved the most and I recall asking my mother to prepare a jar for me in the summer which I later tucked away to ripen in a dark cupboard of my apartmentâto the dismay of my roommate at the time who complained of the stench. In any case, this recipe is simple although it does require a bit of time and patience to produce a very delicious, tangy, and pungent result in about 40 days.
Ingredients
to fill two, 3 Liter jars:
salt and spices (black peppercorn, bay leaves)
purest filtered water
organic, raw apple cider vinegar
extra virgin olive oil
1 bunch of parsley
1-2 heads of garlic
about 2 kilos of Italian eggplant*, tips carefully removed
about half a kilo of variety peppers**
*A note about the eggplants: what is commonly called âItalianâ eggplants must be used for this recipe; the globe variety in most American grocery stores will just not be right. Italian eggplants are soft, small, thinner skinned, and shaped like a teardrop.
**Peppers can be spicy or sweet, to preference. I prefer half sweet and half spicy!
Directions
1. Gently wash all your vegetables, carefully peel all your garlic, de-seed your peppers and remove tips from eggplants. Count the number of eggplants you have and pick the same number of your best, longest parsley to set aside.
2. Carefully slice one side of your eggplants: this will make the pocket to stuff them later. Cook your eggplants in boiling water for about 8-10 minutes. This is absolutely necessary to properly soften them for stuffing later.Â
3. While your eggplants cook, roughly chop your peppers and parsley together into a bowl. Mix in about two tablespoons of salt. Cut your garlic lengthwise and set aside.
4. Remove your eggplants from the boil when they are softened and set aside to completely cool. Keep your burner on and take the best parsley leaves you set aside and cook them for just a minute until pliable. Carefully remove and also set aside to cool.
5. Once your eggplants have cooled, you may begin stuffing. Start by gently placing garlic slices deep inside, filling with about a spoon or two of your parsley and pepper mix. Take a softened parsley leaf and gently wrap it around the stuffed eggplant and tie as pictured above. Continue working until all eggplants are stuffed.
6. Begin filling your jars with several bay leaves, black peppercorn, remaining garlic and filling. Traditionally, fresh grape leaves are used in between the stuffed garlic, so if you have those it would be opportune to use them.
7. In a large measuring cup, pour 3 cups of clean, filtered water per 1 cup of raw, organic apple cider vinegar. Stir in 1/3 cup of salt until well-dissolved and pour the brine over your eggplants until covered.
8. Place your ceramic weights over the pickle. At this point, pour in your spoonfuls of extra virgin olive oil. The olive oil will form a seal over your brine and take on an incredible flavor with time. Put on your lids and allow your jars to sit in a dark, cool (as possible) environment for about 40 days.
On the left, you can see the jar of eggplant pickles I had packed a few weeks prior on July 30, 2022, next to the two I made today, August 14, 2022. These Kilner jars are frankly not for this kind of oily pickling, but I do not have any large jars at my disposal at the moment so they will do. Ideally, I would have used something like the Ball wide mouth half gallon jars.
Turli is a very popular Albanian homestyle dish that can be made in a variety of waysâas a stew with beef, goat, or lamb meat, baked in tepsi as I will show here, or cooked in earthenware pots in fire ovens if youâre lucky. It can encompass a lot of things, but it is essentially a medley of seasonal summer vegetables: tomatoes, peppers, zucchini and summer squash, okra, eggplants, potatoes. Today I will briefly outline how to make this enchanting turli tavĂ« with beef qofte.
Wash and prepare your eggplants, long green peppers, onions, and garlic. Italian eggplants are best for this dish as they are generally elongated yet much smaller than the average American grocery store globe eggplant.
For the qofte, mince two onions and 5-6 garlic cloves in a bowl and incorporate well with your ground 20% fat ground beef. Add spices to taste: salt, ground black pepper. ground cumin, coriander, Aleppo chili powder, paprika, dried mint, and fresh herbs (mint and/or parsley).
To prepare the eggplants, cut them into sections about an inch thick, generously salting and shallow fry them until golden on both sides them with generous ghee. Eggplants will absorb oil quickly so you may have to add more as they shallow fry, as shown above!
To prepare the tepsi, pour fire-roasted crushed tomatoes, minced garlic, drizzle olive oil and season generously with salt, garlic powder, ground black pepper, Aleppo chili powder, paprika, dried oregano, thyme, and Greek seasoning mix.
Once your eggplant is cooked and your qofte are formed into balls, gently place the eggplants up on the tomato sauce bed with the qofte meatballs between pieces, as shown. Carefully place your peppers on top and bake for 45 min at 375°F covered, and 410-420°F uncovered for an additional 20 min or until well browned. Garnish with parsley or mint leaves and enjoy with a side of yoghurt, olives and feta!
Something to consider...
As mentioned above, turli is a summer vegetable medley, so you can make any additions or subtractions to your liking. Below is an example where I included zucchini, eggplant and okra, and didnât have any of those long peppers on hand!
I baked this peach almond cream tart with apricot jam to celebrate my husband and my second year anniversary! My first time making puff pastry (and almond cream for that matter) and it turned out better than I expected, granted the French really took Ottoman pastries (filo, in this case) and made them precise and near-mathematical so I had some experience having helped my mom roll out peta for baklava and byrek since I was young. The tart was flaky, moist, and just sweet enough without pushing itâI feel very accomplished!
As I had intended to make the shalgam suyu today, I conveniently decided to pickle the leftover turnips and beets! These, along with pickled spicy peppers, feta, and olives (like above) are beloved in my family, accompanying any kebab or roasted lamb main dishes. đ Although a vermillion red in the photo, it is a lot more of deep, bright fuchsia in person thanks to the beets - just stunning to look at!
This will be a very simple recipe, Iâm just briefly sharing the steps. I will note that I did not boil the vinegar brineâit is absolutely fine to do so, I just preferred to keep some of the beneficial bacteria and yeast in raw, apple cider vinegar, which would otherwise be lost to boiling. Enjoy!
1 kilo of turnips and half a kilo of beets will yield roughly four jars. I ended up filling only 3 Mason jars with only what I had in the above picture. You will need spices of choice (bay leaves, peppercorns), handful garlic for flavor, and of course turnips and a one beet per two turnip ratio (the beet is mostly to impart that lovely pink color).
Wash and peel all vegetables. Smash your garlic. Cut your turnips and beets into long, slightly thick wedges.
Begin packing your jars with the bay leaves, peppercorns and handful garlic first, then the beets and turnips. Set aside.
In a large measuring cup, pour 3 cups of clean, filtered or mineral water per 1 cup raw, organic apple cider vinegar. Stir in about a third cup of salt and keep stirring until the salt is well dissolved.
Pour the vinegar brine into your jar. Place clean glass weights on top. Tightly seal the lids and gently turn over and shake a few times to incorporate well.
Allow to sit in a dark, cool environment for 10 days. Refrigerate and enjoy when ready!
My jars presented above before they go into their cave. The leftmost jar was prepared first so it had half an hour advance over its friends to release the beautiful pigments from the beets! It will deepen in color and thoroughly penetrate the turnips by the tenth day.
After 10 days, below are the three very same jars. The taste is perfection!
Shalgam juice is a delightfully sour beverage traditionally prepared in southern Turkey from lacto-fermented black carrots and turnips, usually accompanying heavy, rich fatty meals to aid digestion. Due to the use of black carrots, the juice is rich in polyphenol antioxidant anthocyanins, as well as necessary minerals, amino acids, C, carotenoids, and some B group vitamins. For the curious, more can be read about their incredible health benefits here than I could ever accurately spill in this journal.
Originating from and primarily cultivated in western and central Asia, black carrots are incredibly difficult to come by in California (and have I looked), so I have substituted it in this recipe with equal parts red carrots and purple carrots. The purple carrot substitution in particular contains anthocyanins, the antioxidant-rich properties offered by black carrots, and also helps with getting the desired sanguineous color. Please enjoy!
Ingredients
to fill one, 3 Liter jar:
salt
cleanest filtered or mineral water
8-10 black, red, or purple carrots
1 large turnip
optional: 1 beet
optional: teaspoon fresh, red spicy chiles
1/3 cup dried organic chickpeas and bulgur
The instruments you will need, besides those typically used for cleaning, will simply be a kitchen scale, calculator, an organic cotton spice pouch, and a 3 liter vessel (or adjust as necessary to fit what size you have).
Directions
1. As always, thoroughly wash and rinse all your vegetables under cold water three or four times or as necessary. As with all ferments, you want clean NOT sterile vegetables as the lactic acid bacteria on the surface of your vegetables are necessary for an active ferment.
2. Remove carrot, beet, and turnip stems; peel your turnip and beets, but not your carrots. In fact, for this ferment, it is ideal to preserve as much of the carrot skin as possible. Use the blunt edge of your knife in quick motions to remove all the hanging root hairs from your carrots.
3. Cut your carrots in half vertically, and the thicker ones into quarters as shown below. Slice your turnips and beet into thick discs.
4. Place your empty jar over a kitchen scale and reset it. Begin packing your jar with the chile flakes/desired spices (optional) and the pouch of chickpeas. Layer on your turnip and beet slices, and then finally your long carrots. Register the weight of your vegetables.
5. Pour in your clean, filtered or mineral water over your vegetables until the water just covers your contents.
6. Register the total weight of your jar including the vegetables and water. For me, the total came out to be roughly 2,345 g. Multiple your weight by 0.02 as we will be using 2% salt to make our brine. This came out to be 46.9 rounded up to 47 g of salt that I needed for this jar.
7. Finally, pour the salt in your jar. Place your fermentation weights carefully over your vegetables to ensure nothing is floating to the top. Cover with the lid and move your ferment into a cool, dark environment. Shalgam suyu will need about 3-4 weeks to best develop its flavors at room temperature, and longer if you prefer a very tart, salty drink.
My finished jar will not be in direct sunlightâobviously that was just for this photo. The floating bits are some peppercorns I added. I will be updating this post in a month and see how my shalgam suyu has developed!
I filled two large jars with baek (white) kimchi using Maangchiâs recipe, though I made some slight modifications (adding chilis to a non-spicy kimchi, for one). I foolishly decided not to strain the pulsed onion, garlic, ginger and pear juice, leaving a little bit of fibrous pulp floating around. Hopefully this will not affect flavor or the fermentation process, and will eventually settle. If this baek kimchi comes out a success, I will detail the process for it and its more famous and spicy, tongbaechu kimchi, in a future post. For now, this beauty will ferment at my room temperature (25°C) for 36-48 hours before fermenting in the refrigerator for another 2 weeks. đ
October 25, 2021 Update: My finished baek kimchi is perfect and has been thriving in the fridge; my initial fears about the fibrous pulp have also been relieved when I had a taste. My husband in particular loves the flavorâin fact he prefers it to the typical spicy kimchi!
I received a very special gift in early December from my husbandâwhat every girl wants for Christmasâwhich was this Ohio Stoneware 3-gallon water seal fermentation crock. Naturally, I immediately filled it up with 6 large heads of cabbage, more than a dozen carrots, radishes, onions, and Serrano chiles. Our apartment has been very cold the past month, averaging about 18°C (64°F) indoors, which has been the perfect temperature for my sauerkraut to thrive. I let it ferment for longer than usual at nearing 5 weeks and it is the best sauerkraut I have ever made: refreshing and very sour!
My crock at its halfway-fill stage :)
Updating this as the end of March approaches, I still have about 11 liters of sauerkraut cooling in the fridge from just this sauerkraut in the crock I fermented in December! It will surely keep through early summer.
Fermentation is one of the oldest and most important technologies of food preservation throughout human cultural history. The innumerable purported health benefits of fermented foods have been attested to by our respective ancestors, long before they received any formal recognition or inquiry by established, Western capital-s Science.
In the modern diet of the so-called âdevelopedâ world, the corporate food industry and its bedfellow, the government, obscenely incentivize diets full of heavily processed, preservative- and sugar-laden foods, industrial seed oils, artificial flavors, pasteurization that depletes food of nutrients, and then post-processing nutrient fortification. To avoid getting overbearing and unnecessarily didactic, my main point is fermented foods remain one of the greatest methods to overcoming the poverty of such a diet, and re-introducing health and vitality back into oneâs system. Consumption of fermented foods has shown promise in a wide variety of studies for decreasing the risk of bacterial infections, inflammation, obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and a host of neuro-degenerative, psychiatric maladies. Spicy, tangy, sour, and salty, fermented cabbageâperhaps the most studied lacto-fermented vegetableâis low in carbohydrates, and rich in vitamins C, K, carotenoids, folate, minerals, and antioxidants. It is simply the best appetizer and accompaniment for all meals of the day!
To most, a classic sauerkraut recipe will only call for two ingredients: the freshest cabbage and salt, but I find this to be a bit too plain for my taste. And in fact, many Albanian lakër turshi recipes ask for at least the inclusion of carrots and garlic; if it is plain, it is usually fermented whole in a water-sealed crock (and oftentimes stuffed and steamed as sarma). That being said, the best sauerkraut is the one that you can see yourself consuming daily, with flavors you enjoy.
My fermented cabbage recipe is very approachable for beginners and the process itself is sufficiently rewarding; patience is the only real challenge.
Ingredients
for one batch (fills up one, 3 Liter jar):
salt
handful black peppercorns
2-4 bay leaves
2 green cabbages
2 large carrots
one red onion
one apple of choice
2 red radishes
2 Serrano chiles
Directions
1. Wash your vegetables by mainly rinsing them. Peel onion and carrot skins, clean and remove radish and carrot stems/ends, discard the outer cabbage leaves. Thinly slice your cabbages, carrots, radishes, apples, onions, and chiles. I personally chose to keep the skins of my radishes and apples.
Do not overdo your vegetable washing with soaps or astringent cleaners, as many lactic acid bacteria are already living on the surface of your vegetables which are valuable for our fermentationâsoaking and rinsing three or so times until the water runs clear will suffice in most cases. You should mostly be concerned with how clean your hands and surfaces are when fermenting! It is wise to frequently wash your hands with fragrance-free natural soaps before handling your vegetables, jars, and any other tools you intend to use to prepare your ferment.
2. Weigh all of your vegetables.
3. Calculate the weight of salt you will be using. Cabbage, when salted, draws out enough moisture that making a brine is usually unnecessary. For sauerkraut, 2% salt for the total weight of your vegetables is sufficient for fermentation. So, for my last batch of vegetables weighing a total of 1924 grams, 2% of that total weight would be rounded up to 39 g of salt.
Because we are weighing the mass of our vegetables, rather than calculating volume, the coarseness of your salt does not matter as it might for other recipes that calculate based on volume (i.e. cups, tablespoons). Also, no matter how much or little sauerkraut you are fermenting, always use 2% salt.
4. Gently massage the salt into the sauerkraut for a minute, ensuring itâs well-incorporated. Then, let your vegetables rest with the salt for 20 minutes. They will become soft and limp as the moisture is drawn out, as pictured in the before and after below.
5. Begin packing your clean, dry jar with a couple bay leaves and black peppercorns to start. Bay leaves are great for fermenting particularly because they are rich in tannins, which can maintain the crunch of your vegetables. Squeeze a fistful of the vegetables at a time and pack tightly. Layer a few peppercorns in between packing the vegetables, to your preference.
6. Carefully place your weights over the packed vegetables. This is essential to prevent mold growth.
7. Pour the brine into your jar. And, this is quite important: make sure there is at least two inches of space between the brine and your lid.Â
As I learned from failed previous jars, it is important to leave some room for the gases that develop over the course of the fermentation process. In my failed previous batch, exactly that occurred and I ended up with oxidized brine and sauerkraut I unfortunately had to toss.
8. Cover with the lid and let your sauerkraut sit and ferment in a cool, dark environment for at least 2 weeks, preferably 3 weeks to ensure it has gone through all stages of fermentation.
A few considerations:
When fermenting anything, elect to use fresh, organic produce, preferably from your local farmerâs market. Although it will typically be more expensive, this is a worthwhile investment and will greatly benefit the microbial diversity and growth through the fermentation process as it ensures no: harmful chemical pesticides, herbicides, waxing, food irradiation, etc.âall of which can negatively impact the microbial life of your ferments. Produce farmed in organic soil is also healthier and contains more vital minerals and nutrients than non-organic soil.
I am fermenting using the 3 liter Kilner air-lock vessels. If you are using a screw-top Mason jar or other similar vessel, you would need to unscrew once (often called âburpingâ) daily to ensure gases can escape and your precious jars donât explode from the build up of CO2 gas pressure released during the fermentation process. Otherwise I encourage using an airlock system or, better yet, a water-seal crock.
Additionally, if you are using a regular jar and not an airlock or water-seal system, it is possible that your ferment will develop some Kahm yeast. This is completely safe to consume (although it may affect flavor). It is not mold growth but you can skim it off if you find it unpleasant. Your senses are your better judgment in all cases.
The length of your ferment is as dependent on your climate as it is on taste preferences. If you live in a humid environment or are fermenting during the summer, it may be useful to taste test your ferment for readiness after 5 days or a week. Itâs not advisable to ferment in peak summer heat. The best temperature for sauerkraut fermentation is between 18-21°C (65-70°F).
Finally, refrigerate your sauerkraut once it is ready and to your liking. Refrigeration halts or seriously slows fermentation, and your sauerkraut will typically keep for several months.
My three jars will be fermenting for about 21 days. I can hardly wait until then....
