Brined Courgette and Green Bean Ferment

About:
This ferment uses a brine solution as the base. I had some green beans that were going bad, fermenting is a wonderful way to prolong the life of your vegetables. I found the sour crunch you got from biting into the green beans very satisfying. I can nibble on these all day. The salt is also an important factor in keeping the veg crunchy. The courgette strands are like a spaghetti pasta which taste great in salads.

Ingredients:

• Green Beans
• Courgette
• Dill
• Garlic
• Blackpepper corns
• Salt

Method:

Start by finely slicing the courgette into strands which you add to a large mason jar. I recommend using a large jar that can be pack full with your veg. Then add your green beans to the jar aswell. I added roughly 3-4 cloves of garlic, anymore I can find it to overpowering. Add dill, here you can be really generous and fresh dill is the best. Peppercorns are also going to give your mixture an added edge of flavour. Once all your ingredients are in the jar this is when you can prepare your brined water. To do this you simply add water and salt. It’s common to use a salt content of between 3-5%. So for example, for this recipe I used a 3.5% salt content meaning for every liter of water you add 35g of salt. In this case I added 500ml of water yielding a 17.5g salt quantity. I had a little trouble keeping the sliced courgettes submerged, it helped to add a glass cup to press everything down. Even better is if you have a cabbage leaf which can be folded and placed over the top of your veg. It’s important that everything is as much as possible under the surface to prevent mould from growing. After a day, you should be able to see bubbles rising to the surface. This means your friendly microbial bacteria are well on their way fermenting. Refrigerate after 3 days or longer depending on how acidic you want the mixture to be.