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Winter Torshi

January 17, 2016 By Lauren

pickled cauliflower

The more you get into pickling, the more you realize you can pickle (or more rightly, ferment) practically anything.  Typically cucumbers are the gate-way vegetable, followed by cabbage for ‘kraut, green-beans for New England style dilly-beans, then carrots, turnips, radishes, kohlrabi, hot peppers, lemons, garlic…

At some point (perhaps after kohlrabi), the possibilities begin to seem absolutely endless.  I, personally, have pickled all of the above plant-foods and have tasted countless other ones (mangoes, the stalks from Swiss chard, mushrooms, pineapple [!!]).  Then, there’s the boundless amount of combinations–cabbage w/ algae and nettle, radishes and turnips mixed w/ thin slices of beet, carrots w/ turmeric and garlic and zucchini and turnips and cauliflower.

cauliflower

Yep, you can pickle cauliflower, too.

The above combination was my first introduction to pickles.  Iraqi torshi (the Arabic word for pickles): stained-yellow, all crunchy and salty and sour.  This was the jar that was consistently found in my Iraqi grandmother’s fridge and the fridge of, I’d wager, most Iraqi grandmothers.  This was the jar I would tuck my fork into and ply pickle after pickle out of, until my mouth would buzz from the brine.

Torshi was a year-round deal in my grandmother’s kitchen, but I’m categorizing my variation as a Winter kind-of deal because, even though there’s cauliflower a-plenty in the Summer, there just aren’t as many other Winter candidates for pickling (raise yr hand if you’re already fed-up w/ ‘kraut) and ’tis the season to celebrate variation in yr local diet when you can find it.

carrots

As usual, this isn’t a super-strict recipe, but more a set of guidelines for you to do w/ what you will. I use cauliflower, red carrots, turmeric root and garlic in my version, but if you live in a region where you have other options (like zucchini and summer turnips) then throw those in as well.  If you want to stain your pickles yellow, use powdered turmeric instead of the root.  The main point is to cut your vegetables into even-sized chunks to get them fermenting at a similar rate (in order for them to be similarly crunchy).

wintertorshi

Winter Torshi

Note:  For more information on the health benefits of lacto-fermented pickles see here.

#1.  Chop cauliflower and carrots (and zucchini and summer turnips, if you have them) into even-sized chunks.  Slice turmeric into thin strips, peel garlic and leave whole.

#2.  While you’re chopping, put a kettle to boil.  Pour boiling water into seal-able glass jar.  Let sit for a few moments.  Pour water out of jar and let cool (either by pouring cold water into jar, or just leaving it for a few more moments).

#3.  Add vegetables and herbs to jar.  Stuff until jar is full.

#4.  Add celtic sea-salt (or another unrefined, sun-dried sea salt).  The amount depends on the size of your jar. For example, I used a 2-litre sized jar so I added 3 tablespoons of salt.  If your jar is smaller, add less.  If it’s bigger, add more.  You need your brine (your salt + water solution) to be salty enough to promote the production of beneficial bacteria, so there’s a minimum amount necessary, but there’s no maximum. Experiment and taste your brine as you’re working.

#5.  Fill jar w/ non-chlorinated water.  (For those of you who are state-side, to de-chlorinate your water simply fill a jar w/ tap water and let stand for at least 30 minutes.  Good practice to get into even when not making pickles, methinks.)

#6.  Make sure your vegetables are submerged under your brine.  To do this, you may need to use a tool–like a sterilized (boiled) stone, or the root-end of the cauliflower–to press down on your vegetables and seal them in.  If you packed them super tightly, you won’t need this tool.  You just need to make sure none of your vegetables are exposed to air.

#7.  Seal tightly and store in a cool, dark place for at least 3 days.  I fermented my Winter torshi for 5 days because I wanted it to be crunchy.  After opening, store in the refrigerator.

Filed Under: Ferments, Recipes, Seasons, Sides, Winter Tagged With: cauliflower, condiments, DIY, ferments, lactofermented, middleeasternfood, pickles, sides, torshi, winter

Spring-time Torshi for Grandma Mary

March 27, 2015 By Lauren

I’m one-half first-generation American on my father’s side which means that my father’s an immigrant and I, at least by one-half, am an immigrant’s daughter.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, what that has come to mean for me here.

vegfortorshi

It’s been nearly seven months since I moved to Switzerland, seven months since I filled two suitcases with the majority of my things, seven months since I boarded a plane with the intention of staying put, settling down in an entirely new country, a country that I will, someday I reckon, call home, or at least a second one.

Unlike my father, I’m an ex-pat here not an immigrant.  This distinction has always caused eye-rolling on my part, but the difference, as far as I’ve seen, is that I can always go home.

It’s been nearly fifty-four years since my father, let’s call him (as those in his inner-circle [and outer-circle, come to think of it] do) Doc, left his first home.  Forty-nine since he emigrated to the U.S., by way of Israel.  Thirty-three since he moved from NYC to metro-Detroit, his fourth home.

packjar

When people ask me where my last name is from and I say Iraq there’s often a moment: of surprise, of intrigue, of brow-raising, “oh!”.  My heritage is Jewish and Christian, not Muslim, and I suppose I look different (and I am, after all, one-half Eastern European on my mom’s side) than the image of Iraqis many people have in their heads .

I suppose the Iraq of my grand-parent’s generation looked a lot different than the image of Iraq I’ve had shelled in my head.  I’ve had glimpses of this Iraq, from photo albums, Doc’s recollections; it exists for me, but it’s scattered, dispersed between the covers of newspapers, the footage on the news.

turnipbeet

I’ve been thinking of my grand-parents a lot, lately, and how radically their lives changed.  My grandmother was around my age when she came to the U.S.  I didn’t get to know her too well (she passed on when I was young), but I’ve been thinking about her and how her life took her across the world around the same time that mine has.

This week, I’m making a recipe for her, inspired by her to connect with her and my memories of what we shared.

turnipbeetjar

Mary, born in Baghdad, Iraq, American immigrant, devoted Catholic, mother of four.  Do these details really describe who you were?

I have other artifacts, too: a tape-recording of meditative breathing–Som/Om, Som/Om–, an aerobics tape atop your VCR, a glass-jar filled with matchbooks from the places you’d been, a carving of a man and woman intertwined in an embrace on your bed-side-table that would make a nine-year-old me turn pink.  An olive-wood rosary, icons of the Virgin Mother.  You were deeply religious, but not in the disciplinarian, god-fearing way.  More in a close-to-god (I’d even venture goddess, as your icon of choice was a woman) and his/her love kind of way.

picklejardeuxtorshione

Mostly, I remember you through food.  The grape-leaves we grew for you, for dolma, beneath the deck of our first home, that sprawling suburb with similarly-drawn houses facing each other across green and marshy lawn.  Your similarly green tabouli, drenched in lemon, always in the same banded-glass bowl that I often ate straight-out-of, with a big soup spoon.  Kibbeh–olive-oil, cinnamon, salt, the color of soil–which you’d press flat and slice like a pie.  A yellow onion, that you’d bite into like an apple.

A big jar of torshi on your fridge-door’s shelf.

torshitwo

Torshi is the word you can use for pickles from tables in the Balkans to those in the Hindu Kush.  Recipes differ, but the principle is the same–something preserved, made sour (with salt through lacto-fermentation, or with vinegar) for a tangy addition to your meal.

In Chinese medicine, they say the sour taste is yin, cooling, gathering, absorbent, most active in the liver, strengthening for weakened lungs, “proper food” for the “heartmind.”  It organizes scattered mental patterns, collects and holds together what has been dispersed.  (Pitchford, 312).

Mary was the daughter of an Armenian orphan, a man whose parents had been killed in the genocide.  He grew up in the company of Iraqi Christians–or Chaldeans–and married one.  Mary met my Gidu (grandpa in Arabic), a Jewish man, and fell in love.  This love would eventually cast them out from their home in Iraq, from Israel (where the Jewishness of the family was called into question), to a place where they could find (at that time) acceptance: the U.S.

Perhaps that is why, as immigrants, ex-pats, immigrants-daughters or grand-daughters or even great-great-granddaughters, we can gravitate toward the sour.  A taste to gather, to collect, to hold together what has been dispersed, to bring us together.

Mary’s torshi was made with cauliflower, carrots, cucumbers and cabbage.  I used the first turnips and radishes of Spring in my versions.  A bright sash of color for a pale-green early Spring.

torshitwoways

Print
Spring-time Torshi, 2 Ways

Ingredients

    Turnips + 1/8 Beet (Fuschia)
  • Bunch of turnips, sliced thin
  • 1/8 of a small beet, sliced thin
  • 1.5 tablespoons course sea-salt
  • De-chlorinated water
  • And/Or
  • Turnips + Radishes + Black Radish (Carnelian)
  • Bunch of radishes, sliced thin
  • Handful of turnips, sliced thin
  • 1 small black radish, sliced thin
  • 1.5 tablespoons course sea-salt
  • De-chlorinated water

Directions

  1. Sterilize a pint-sized glass jar by filling it with boiling water. Wait a few minutes, then drain. Fill with cold water to cool glass, then drain again.
  2. Press slices of vegetables into jar until it's full. Add salt. Pour cold, de-chlorinated water (Note: You can de-chlorinate your water by letting it stand for at least 30 minutes) until it covers vegetables. Seal with lid.

Let ferment in cool, dry place for at least 3 days and up to many months. After opening, store in fridge.

3.1

 

References:
Pitchford, Paul. Healing with Whole Foods. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 1993, 2002.

Filed Under: Ferments, Recipes, Seasons, Sides, Spring Tagged With: beets, condiments, lactoferments, pickles, probiotics, radishes, spring, torshi, turnips

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