Summertime is kitchen project time. Here are a few of the delights
@lolz4lilz and I have made over the last few weeks.
There’s an emulsified pineapple vinegar that we made by fermenting pineapple solids, with part of the rind on. I figured that starting off as a lacto ferment would start to produce ethanol, due to the high # of yeast microbes on the outside of the pineapple. Then, after a few days, I backslopped with vinegar and opened the fermentation vessel under cheesecloth. A couple of weeks later, we blended the result and ran it through a sieve with more cheesecloth. It’s one of the tastiest things we’ve made. (With the remaining rinds we made tepache, also pictured.)
There are some noma-pilled classics here: pea shoyu; black garlic “balsamic” (made last year); lacto tomato water; and (not pictured) elderflower kombucha.
Two of these concoctions are pretty much mine, and I’m happy with both of them. The better one is something I’ve called “corn chai vinegar”: after eating a bunch of corn on the cob (midwest classic), we kept the cobs and I made tea with them in a pot with masala spices. We had some of it in that way, which was nice, but then I added everclear and backslopped with vinegar—it’s a sort of “tea vinegar” but for corn? It tastes malty and warmly spiced. The other I’ve called “sea buckthorn Old Bay”: it’s dried sea buckthorn mixed with paprika and dried celery. I first used it as a tea, but I think a better bet will be grinding it into a dry spice rub. I’m cold-infusing the rest of the sea buckthorn with rice bran oil, which will take months.
Rocco made cherry wine! (Lily’s pic.) We got a ton of montmorency cherries, macerated them, then the baby stomped them like grapes, and they’re now fermenting in a carboy, which I’m defending against fruitflies with a nitrile glove.
Lily’s eating a bagel with a gooseberry chammanthai I made: blended fresh (green) gooseberries with coconut cream, chili, and curry leaves.
