KSF… My favourite!

So what’s a KSF? It’s my name for one of my favourite, most economical dishes… ‘Kitchen Scrap Ferment’.

It’s just chopped vegetable leftovers after a couple of meals fermented in a salt solution, but ‘KSF’ sounds pretty cool.

So… How do I make it?…

It’s an ‘anaerobic’ (without oxygen) process using anaerobic bacteria. That means that the bacteria don’t like oxygen. The salt in the water stops the wrong bacteria from thriving. The acidity from the citrus helps too.

I used to often get mold on the top of many of my ferments because I didn’t make sure the veggies were underwater and they got exposed to the small amount of air trapped under the lid.

Thinking on it, I mused ‘I need a good way to keep the veggies under the water level, an air seal and acidity’ (that helps both the fermentation and the taste). One day I was inspired to use a thick slice of excess grapefruit and have done that ever since with whatever citrus is handy).

I used to a use 5% salt solution (that’s 50g of salt to a litre of water) but have found that as long as the water tastes distinctly salty, that’s enough. Some folks go as high as 10% (100g / litre).

Once the jar is well sealed, it gets left for about 4 days at this time of year (warm Winter). Then I start to taste it. If it’s just awesome, it goes into the fridge to slow it from fermenting any further and I can eat it at my leisure (nobody else in the family likes home made ferments, so it’s all mine).

If it’s not tangy enough, the jar stays out for a couple more days. It’s really a personal thing and varies from batch to batch because the ingredients are always different.

I like surprises!