Jalapeño & Fresno Pepper Giardiniera

You may recall that, when I made my refrigerator jalapeño pickles, I mentioned adding Fresno peppers for a Christmasy pickle, and also that I thought it would be interesting to ferment them.

So today, I started a ferment. From the photo, starting at upper left and proceeding clockwise:

• Russian red garlic — I peeled the cloves, the sliced them thinly using my Oxo garlic mandoline; I found that the whole cloves in the refrigerator pickle were too overpowering.
• Ginger root — sliced thinly by hand and added to the bowl.
• Jalapeños — sliced 4mm thick using Oxo large adjustable handheld mandoline
• Daikon radish — I peeled this because its been in the fridge a while and then cut it into squat matchsticks (or elongated small dice)
• Safawi dates — I thought a little sweetness might help; you could use any date, Safawi is just what I had. I pitted five and chopped them.
• Red onion — chopped coarsely (into squares)
• Nantes carrot — didn’t peel this, but did the same squat-matchstick/elongated-small-dice
• Fresno peppers — I thought I’d use the mandoline again, but the walls were too thin, so I sliced them by hand.

The total weight was 1.5kg, so I used 30g grey sea salt (2%). I mixed the vegetables with a silicone spatula, sprinkled them with the salt, then mixed by hand, squeezing them a bit as I did. 

I had let a packet of my starter culture hydrate in 1/2 cup of spring water as I worked, so once everything was mixed and the salt dissolved and distributed, I added the culture, mixed well again with the spatula, and put the mix into three 1-liter canning jars, using my kraut tamper to pack it down in the jars. Once the jars were filled, I distributed the liquid left in the mixing bowl equally among the three jars (since it was probably culture-rich). Then I poured in enough spring water (never use tap water for fermentation) to cover the vegetables.

A transparent glass fermentation weight is sitting on the vegetables in the photos above. I didn’t really fill the jars with vegetables, but still is a good haul. They will sit in a rimmed quarter-sheet baking pan in case of overflow. 

I’m marking the calendar now for May 12. I’ll test them along the way, but two weeks seems like a reasonable time. I’m not sure this qualifies as a giardiniera, but it is a mix of fresh garden vegetables. 

May 1 turned out be long enough

I’m surprised that it went so fast — three days! — but when I tried some from one of the jars, it seemed fine. I did note that even after just a day I would get a good stream of bubbles emerging if I tilted the jar, so the lactobacilli took off quickly.

The peppers are much milder now that they’re fermented, and they have a good crunch. Here are two of the jars. Note how much vegetables have collapsed.

This morning I put one jar into the refrigerator and had some of the giardiniera with my lunch. Very pleasant. The photo above is of the other two jars, which still have their fermentation weight.