Fermentation #5 – Asparagus and Carrots
A delicious combinations and one of my favorite ferments of the year!
I was up one night, trying to think of what I could ferment for this issue of the magazine and kept coming back to asparagus. Asparagus itself is lovely in the springtime and I’ve always been intrigued by the write up for the white asparagus recipe in ‘The Noma Guide to Fermentation’ (a great read if you’re interested in fermentation).
I was going to ferment the asparagus by itself at first but ended up pairing it with carrots. Since we were also at the tail end of citrus season, I added in some blood orange slices to help brighten everything up. That was going to be more or less it, however, when I was at the actual market to buy all of the things I noticed some very pretty and fresh looking young ginger.
Young ginger is essentially early harvest ginger that has a lighter, almost translucent, skin and pink tips. It has a milder and juicier flavor to the more standard ginger which has a much more spicy and intense flavor. Also, fun fact, you don’t need to peel young ginger since the skin is so light and thin.
Seeing that ginger goes so well with citrus and carrots to begin with, I figured it was worth picking up some for both this ferment and potentially a whole separate ferment on the side!
Cheers,
Joey
Youtube Video:
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Full Recipe:
Fermentation #5 – Asparagus and Carrots
Ingredients
Method
- Place your fermentation vessel on a kitchen scale and zero out the weight.
- Combine asparagus, carrots, ginger, orange slices and bay leaves into your fermentation vessel. Fill the vessel with water, covering all of the ingredients. Leave 1-2 inches of space at the top for the fermentation weight if using, and also for the pressure build up.
- Add 3% salt by weight. Meaning, if the weight of all of the ingredients in step 2 is 2700 grams, you would add 81 grams of salt to the vessel. Close the vessel and move it around to dissolve all of the salt.
- Once dissolved, open the vessel and use a fermentation weight or even just a piece of paper towel over the surface of the mixture to ensure that everything is submerged in liquid before sealing.
- Place the vessel in a darker area out of any direct sunlight and allow 3-5 days to ferment. Make sure to check on it at least once per day (ideally twice) to relieve any pressure build up (if not using a pressure airlock). This pressure build up also indicates that fermentation is fully taking place. Refrigerate when sufficiently fermented.
