Although gut-friendly fermented foods like yogurt, kimchi, and kombucha typically contain cheap ingredients, you may have no clue how to make them and feel too intimidated to try.
But David Zilber, a top chef, food scientist, and the former director of fermentation at the three-Michelin star, former ‘World’s Best Restaurant’ Noma, told Business Insider that fermenting is actually “pretty easy to figure out.”
“I always like to say that if you can make a salad, you can make fermented foods because they’re on par in complexity,” he said. Zilber, who cowrote the acclaimed “The Noma Guide to Fermentation,” recommended three fermented food recipes for beginners.
He said that lacto-fermentation, which uses lactic acid-producing bacteria, is a good place to start.
Fermented foods are great for gut health
Fermented foods are created when live bacteria or yeast are added to foods like vegetables, tea, or milk, and are known to increase the diversity of microbes in the gut microbiome, which is a sign of a healthy gut.
In a 2021 study, researchers at Stanford University assigned participants either a diet high in fiber — including fruits, vegetables, legumes, grains, nuts, and seeds, — or high in fermented foods — such as yogurt, kefir, fermented cottage cheese, fermented vegetables, vegetable brine drinks, and kombucha — for 10 weeks.
Eating a wide range of fibrous plant foods is known to increase gut microbe diversity, but the researchers were surprised to find that by the end of the study, the fermented food group saw a bigger effect than the high-fiber group.
There’s strong evidence that the probiotics, or “good” microbes, that fermented foods contain can improve our health in many ways, from smoothing digestion to strengthening immunity and boosting mental health.
As public awareness of the importance of gut health has increased, businesses have cashed in on the trend. Fortune Business Insights estimates the global probiotics market will be more than $94 billion by 2027, and a small jar of fermented foods from Whole Foods costs around $9. But you don’t have to spend big bucks to tend to your gut microbes. You can pick up a whole cabbage for $1 and make two liters of sauerkraut.
With the health benefits and value-for-money (not to mention the tastiness) that fermented foods provide, there’s no reason not to give fermenting a go.
Here are Zilber’s recommendations for novice fermenters.
Sauerkraut
To make sauerkraut, you need cabbage, salt, and any seasonings of your choice, such as herbs and spices, Zilber said.
It’s as simple as shredding the cabbage, adding salt and seasoning, massaging it, placing it in a sterile container, and leaving it on your kitchen counter for around seven days, he said.
First, weigh the cabbage and add 2% of it’s weight in salt. You also need something heavy to put on top of the cabbage (the Noma guide recommends using a sandwich bag filled with water) to ensure it’s submerged in the liquid and a lid, tea towel, or plate to cover your ferment.
When you add salt to cabbage, which contains lactic acid-producing bacteria, and lightly massage it, the juices start to release, creating a salty brine. The LAB eats the sugar in the vegetable and converts it into lactic acid, which both preserves it and creates a sour taste.
Kimchi
Kimchi, also a lacto-ferment, is made with napa cabbage, Korean spices or Gochujang paste, and typically a few other crunchy vegetables like scallions and carrots.
Zilber’s at-home method is similar to how he makes sauerkraut, but the cabbage is salted, soaked in water, and covered for around eight to 24 hours before the other ingredients are added. Zilber adds 3% of the cabbage’s weight in salt in this recipe because it will be used to ferment all of the other ingredients too.
After soaking the cabbage, drain out all the water. Add two minced garlic cloves, minced ginger, and the other vegetables, finely chopped. Zilber uses carrots, radishes, scallions, and turnips. Massage the kimchi to mix it all together and to get the juices flowing.
Then add as much or as little Korean chile flake as you like (Zilber adds around 250 milliliters because he likes spice) and about 100 ml of fish sauce.
Put your kimchi in a sterile jar with a lid and leave it on the counter for anywhere between seven to fourteen days, checking its taste regularly. It’s done when you’re happy with the taste.
Pickles
Making pickles is pretty straightforward, but as with all ferments, it requires some patience, Zilber said: “It is not immediate, but it also makes you love those foods when they are finally done that much more.”
Essentially, you start by making some salty water, submerging your cucumbers in it, adding seasonings, and waiting. “It really is incredibly simple,” he said.
You could add anything from bay leaves to dill seeds, mustard seeds, peppercorns, and chiles to the brine to create different flavored pickles.
Put them in a sterile jar and leave them on the counter for about four to five days, checking regularly for taste.
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