Friday, February 10, 2012

Sauerkraut

Sauerkraut with freshly ground black pepper

Sauerkraut. What comes to mind? A large pork knuckle with crispy skin? A fat juicy bratwurst?

Sauerkraut is commonly used as a condiment, but uhhh... I eat it as a snack too :)

At 22kcal per 100g (1.5g protein, 1.9g carbs, 0.1g fat), this fermented cabbage packs a vitamin C and probiotics punch (possibly 13 species of gut friendly bacteria).


I am not sure if people in Germany have their sauerkraut with black pepper, but I remember black pepper seeds amongst the strands of sauerkraut at Tawandang Brewery, and I did like the slightly peppery taste. So. After dropping the sauerkraut into a container, I poured some black pepper seeds onto the sauerkraut, used a fork to mix it up, and stuck it in the fridge.

 

After three days:


Some parts of the sauerkraut touching the black pepper seeds were slightly stained black, and those were the bits that tasted the most pepperish. The rest of the sauerkraut did not taste that pepperish, and were in need of ground pepper, and perhaps a sprinkle of cayenne pepper.  Nevertheless, sauerkraut is already excellent on its own, and the pepper was just to add another dimension to its flavour.

A large can of sauerkraut costs only S$5.00 at Cold Storage. In Australia, you should be able to get a 190g jar of Eden Organic sauerkraut for less than AU$10.00. Way cheaper than probiotics pills.

3 comments:

  1. Typically the store bought sauerkraut has been canned, so the probiotics are killed due to the high temperatures during the canning process. Fresh sauerkraut is the way to go if you're on the market for probiotics.

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  2. Whoops, thanks for pointing that out! By fresh, do you mean homemade? And how about sauerkraut in glass jars?

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  3. Sauerkraut in glass is subject to the same high heat canning process in order to create the vacuum seal. If you want the benefits of real probiotics, it's very easy to make your own sauerkraut or kimchi.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gObQR5Vm4M

    By the way, the plastic lining of cans and plastics in general leach BPA. HEAT (eg canning, microwaving, hot food in take out containers) and ACID (eg tomatoes, sauerkraut, soda) causes more chemicals to migrate to the food.

    In fact, the problem isn't just with #3 and #7 plastics. There's no "safe" plastic. Some scientists only buy food that's stored in glass jars, and prepare their own jams, fermented food etc. We basically don't trust the food industry and chemical industry.
    http://www.rodale.com/chemicals-plastic
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222987/

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