This particular recipe for pickled chard stems looked interesting, especially since I've been tossing the stems into the compost lately. Sometimes I'll chop and cook them separately but I'm not really crazy about them so I've just been discarding them. This recipe looked like a way to reduce that waste while making an intriguing hot pickle.
The only problem was I don't have any chard. However, I did have beets. Did you know that beets and chard are the same species? I learned that recently when I was breaking up my dying chard plants to toss in the compost. When I broke the stems off at ground level, I was surprised to see concentric white and pink rings in the little swelling at the top of the roots. The rings looked just like the rings on a slice of chioggia beet. I showed it to my sweetie and he looked it up, then relating the same species information to me. Chard and beets are different varieties within the Beta vulgaris species.
So, as you've probably already guessed, I made this recipe with beet stems instead of chard stems.
In the meantime, I'm starting a batch of radish kimchi following the recipe in Sandor Katz' great book, Wild Fermentation. The wait for those will be even longer, about a week until they are nice and sour.
Lastly, I pulled out my recipe for sweet pickled onions and plan to pickle a big batch of fresh sweet onions from the organic farm.
I just love pickled vegetables. How about you?
6 comments:
Ooo, YES! I've started to regularly lacto-ferment stuff so I always have at least one jar of the good stuff in my fridge. Right now it's red cabbage sauerkraut with carrots. I love using red cabbage for my kraut because it turns hot pink, fun for the kids.
Are you lacto-fermenting the beet stems or using a vinegar?
My kiids love pickles but I have never pickled anything but cucumbers. You have inspired me to try pickling other things. It will be my weekend project.
Krista - yeah, red cabbage is pretty when pickled. There's a link to the recipe for the beet stems in the post - it's not lacto-fermented, just a refrigerator pickle.
Jen - oh, there's so many veggies that taste good pickled. If you want to see the full list of everything I've pickled, you can find it within the big list of everything I've preserved here (as of two years ago).
Chard stems are not only great pickled, they're absolutely delicious candied! Waste not; want not.
we get bon appetit and i made these too!!! the first batch was only made about 12 days ago, so i'm going to wait a couple more days before trying them :)
Sharlene - I'll have to look for a recipe to do that. Sounds intriguing!
Able-bodied Girl - did you do it with chard? Despite the recipe not specifying to do it, I heated the vinegar and sugar to make sure the sugar dissolved. Did you do the same?
I'm thinking now with the stems kind of chewy that I should have poured the vinegar over them while still hot instead of letting it cool.
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