Fennel Lemon Mint kraut

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In preparation for the FotW's Choucroute Day I knew I was going to need some good sauerkraut to go with it. I don't have much of my homemade stuff left and I'm not really a fan of store bought kraut, so I went on a search for a good recipe. 

Ron and I are both big proponents of the Kraut Kit from Farm Steady, so I started there looking at their recipes. Now, I will say that some of their recipes need to be taken with a grain of salt (pun intended) but they are good starting points for getting ideas. Anyway, one of their recipes looked intriguing, Fennel Lemon Mint kraut. I thought it would pair very well with the Choucroute plate I was planning.  So I started shopping for the ingredients.

To my surprise it turns out fennel is hard to find in my town. It maybe that it's too early in the season as it seems fennel is from fall to early spring, but only 1 of the three grocery stores I went to had fennel, and they called it anise. With fennel finally in hand I grabbed the rest of the ingredients (mint leaves, a lemon and of course cabbage) and off I went.

Preparation is super simple. Slice the fennel and cabbage into narrow strips, and place them in a large bowl with 1-1/2 tablespoons of salt. Massage the salt into the fennel and cabbage to help break down the cells and get the salt in there pulling out the moisture from the leaves. Then add the bruised mint leaves and let it sit for 8-10 minutes. 

In the mean time I got the fermenter out and gave it a quick wash and then a rinse with some StarSan sanitizer to make sure there were no bad things in there to ruin the fermentation process. I also sliced the lemon and removed the seeds then picked 8 of the best looking mint leaves and bruised them by rolling them between my hands.

After the 10 minutes was up, I lined the sides of the fermenter with half of the lemon slices and added the mint to the cabbage/fennel mix. Then I  started packing the cabbage/fennel in very tight, using my fist to push it in as much as possible. After it was about halfway full I put the rest of the lemon around the sides and on top of the cabbage, then continued to fill all the way to the top. By pushing and tamping it real good I was able to fit it all in, though it was right up to and maybe even into the neck of the jar a little. I added all the juice from the bowl and it wasn't quite enough juice to cover everything so I made a brine of 1 teaspoon kosher salt in one cup of water. Then I topped it of with the glass weight and added the brine until it covered the weight.  

Now we wait a couple weeks for the fermentation to finish.