Following on our previous Fermentation Celebration experts tips, today we share a versatile recipe that fermentation expert Melanie McIntosh shared with the public during the Fermentation Celebration Festival last month.
This is a green sauce that goes with nearly everything and can bring together as many or as few elements as you have around you. It really is a case of more than the sum of its parts. Such few ingredients yet the fermentation transformation means that it’s a bright, sour unexpected flavour.
Ideally you would use fresh herbs, but this is also a great way to use up stalks from parsley, coriander and other soft herbs that have been stripped of their leaves. Carrot fronds and beetroot greens are great, as are spicy or bitter leaves like nasturtium and sorrel. The only ones to avoid are anything woody like rosemary.
A note on salt: please use non iodized salt with no additives such as anti-caking. Pick a packet that has ‘salt’ as the only ingredient.
Basic recipe
100g Herbs
3g Salt*
Water as needed
Weight your herbs and blend or chop as fine as possible, mix in salt. If the mixture has become a paste, no need for water. If it’s a bit dry add a teaspoon of water until it comes together as a paste. If you add more than a tablespoon of water, add 1g more of salt.
Decant into clean but not necessarily sterilised glass jar. Cover with a lid
Leave on the counter out of direct sunlight.
Check daily and mix. It will oxidise, a layer on the top will appear darker, this is fine. Start tasting after day 3-4 and when it’s reached the level of fermentation/sour you like stop the fermentation by putting it in the fridge.
This will last in the fridge for a month (or more) best to only use clean spoons to dollop it out.
*this is a 3% ‘dry salt’ method. Meaning 3 % of the total weight of the ingredients.
Flavour ideas, use the same method as above.
Mint chutney
Mint, large handful
3 garlic cloves
½ green chilli
½ white onion
Toasted cumin
Water
3% Salt of the total weight of the ingredients
Coriander sauce
Coriander stalks,
1 small onion
½ green chilli
3% Salt of the total weight of the ingredients
How to eat!
In its natural fermented form on roasted veggies = life changing. Or add oil to thin it out for a vinaigrette. Or blend with pumpkin seeds for a gorgeous chunky pesto-like sauce. Add chopped up capers (or nasturtium bud) and gherkin and mix into mayonnaise for a sort of tartar.
It really is an infinity sauce.
