Fermented pepper sauce is one of the easiest, safest and most delicious methods of preserving your garden’s bountiful harvest of peppers.
Try this traditional Italian fermented tomato conserve for your huge harvest of heirloom tomatoes.
Preserving that overly abundant harvest has been one of the major challenges that gardening and agriculture has always had. In today’s world we are much more familiar with the processes of canning, drying and freezing as acceptable methods of preserving our garden’s harvest for the winter season and longer. These methods have their own set of challenges, though. Canning requires time, experience and knowledge to be successful. Freezing is pretty simple, but has its own set of needs to ensure the garden bounty isn’t lost to freezer burn or premature thawing. Drying is also simple, but benefits from modern drying equipment that can be expensive as an initial purchase.
What if there was another way, a method of preserving the harvest that is not only simple, non-intensive for both labor and equipment and was proven safe? One that is location and temperature independent, doesn’t care if you forget the exact timing and still produces an absolutely delicious product? There is! That method is fermentation. It has been proven safe over several thousand years, with at least that many different approaches and many more recipes. Almost every culture across history has contributed something to the art of fermentation.
Fermenting vegetables is an extremely simple, effective and tasty way to start experimenting and gaining knowledge, taste and experience. In addition to being easy and quick it is also highly nutritious and beneficial to your health.
Some folks are hesitant or outright afraid of trying fermentation for fear of accidentally growing the “wrong” bacteria and sickening or even killing themselves or their families. This is completely understandable in today’s world of anti-microbial soaps, detergents and wipes.
At least in the world of raw vegetables, this fear is unfounded. “As far as I know, there has never been a documented case of food-borne illness from fermented vegetables. Risky is not a word I would use to describe vegetable fermentation. It is one of the oldest and safest technologies we have.” This is from Fred Breidt, a USDA microbiologist specializing in vegetable fermentation.
In fact, fermenting commercially available vegetables will kill any pathogens that we’ve seen in the news as contributing to food-borne illnesses, as they simply cannot survive in the lactic acid environments of fermentation!
This is going to be a slightly different recipe format than we usually do. We will give you a foundational approach to fermenting any vegetables, and then give a basic recipe for a sweet and hot fermented pepper sauce or paste. The beauty of these recipes is that they are entirely scalable. Do you have an extra quart of hot chiles, a handful of sweet peppers and some garlic or onion? Great, we can work with that! Or do you have a couple of 5 gallon buckets of hot chiles and 3 more of sweet peppers, more onions than you know what to do with and you’re worried about them all going bad? No worries, we can work with that as well – all from the same recipe! The flavors from each recipe will be different, but equally delicious and nutritious.
There is a new book on fermentation on the market, and it is most excellent. The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Katz is his newest exploration of this ancient form of preserving foods. His tagline on the book reads, “An in-depth exploration of essential concepts and processes from around the world.” The basic concepts of fermenting come right out of his book, and they are easy!
It doesn’t matter if you have one or a dozen veggies, the above recipe works. Add spices, herbs or edible flowers and experiment. You will be surprised at just how tasty almost everything comes out.
Now that we have the basics down, let’s look at how to handle that bumper crop of hot chiles and sweet peppers. These, along with tomatoes, are one of the most expensive vegetables to buy in the store, but taste so much better out of your garden. It is an absolute crying shame to let any of these go to waste!
Let’s look first at a hot fermented chile sauce, much like Sri Ra Cha or “Rooster Sauce” as it’s called after the rooster on the bottle. The only ingredient ratio to keep in mind is the chile to garlic. Don’t go crazy on the garlic, as it gains pungency as it ferments and can throw off the overall flavor.
A note on the salt – use anything but Iodized salt, as this will cloud the color of the brine and can leave a metallic aftertaste.
Will keep for 6 months or more, but you’ll eat it long before then!
Recipe notes: Wait until the chiles are fully ripe and red, as they will have the most complex flavor profile and yield the tastiest sauce.
Use the general ratio listed to scale up or down to suit your particular needs at the time.
Now let’s look at a larger batch with more ingredients and a completely different flavor.
Now you have the basic foundation of how to make some incredibly delicious chile or sweet fermented pepper sauce. You can go from mild to shockingly hot and experiment with different spices and amounts of complementary vegetables to add their flavors. You will quickly become something of a hero to your family and friends once they taste your unique sauces!
As you improve the health and fertility of your soil, you should start seeing some impressive vegetable harvests. This can be a blessing as well as a curse though. Many people know the old but highly accurate joke about the neighbor that leaves a bag of zucchini on the doorstep, rings the doorbell and runs. This is all well and good, but what to do with 100 pounds of fresh plum tomatoes? Or 150 lbs., 200 lbs. or more? The old doorbell trick will only go so far, so let’s look at a delicious alternative! Tomato conserve is a perfect choice.
Drying and canning are always options, very good ones that should be used. There is another ancient method of preserving the bountiful harvest to capture the fresh flavors for the cold winter and gray early spring months when there wasn’t much of anything fresh available. Fermenting fresh vegetables opens up so many flavors and paths to storing this summer’s bounty for the coming winter. We will look at one such method that not only ferments the over-abundance of tomatoes, but concentrates their flavors as a bonus.
A word about fermenting before we begin is in order, so that you don’t come home one day and throw out the entire project due to a misconception or lack of understanding of how the process works. This particular process uses a wild fermentation, meaning the combination of wild airborne yeasts and the naturally occurring bacteria that is on the tomatoes. This wild fermentation is spontaneous; you don’t do anything to help it along. The acid in the tomatoes provide the perfect environment to support lactic acid fermentation. There will be a surface mold which is white and completely normal. Indeed, the white surface mold is needed to protect the tomatoes from rotting. You should not see any colored mold or offensive “rotting” odors.
This process has been used for several hundred years in Italy; probably the first time was shortly after the tomato made its way from America to Italy in the early 1500s. It is still being used today, all across Italy, as small scale home growers put up their harvests to have the flavor of summer to remember during the coming winter.
The beauty of this method is that it is very scalable, able to handle 20 lbs. in one batch and 100 lbs. or more the next one.
Fresh Tomatoes for Conserve
Start with all of the tomatoes washed, stems and any bad spots removed. Get a container that is larger than the amount of tomatoes, so that when all of the tomatoes are crushed there are several inches of space to the top of the container. If necessary, use more than one container.
Packing Fresh Tomatoes
Crush all of the tomatoes and add them to the container. Stir well and cover with a towel, dishcloth or such to keep insects out while allowing air circulation.
Fermenting Tomatoes
The fermentation happens within a few hours and bubbles will appear, with the solids coming to the top and a white mold forming on them. Remember, white mold is good! Stir twice a day, mixing in the mold. (Note, we did not stir the tomatoes, just let them sit for 5 days and everything turned out fine!)
Fermented Tomatoes
The fermentation will take from 4 to 5 days, depending on temperature and then stop. Remove the solids from the top and strain the mixture through a strainer. One of the best ways to do this is by using a hand cranked device that separates the skins and seeds from the pulp, called a Squeezo or Roma food strainer. The Squeezo is all metal and more expensive but will last several lifetimes!
After straining, keep the pulp and compost the seeds and skins. (As a side note, it you are wanting to save the seeds from those wonderful tomatoes, just transfer them into another bucket for a second ferment for a couple of days, scoop off the mold on top and strain out the seeds. Rinse thoroughly and dry on paper towels with the seeds spread out.)
Fermented Tomato Pulp
The pulp will still have a lot of moisture that needs to be removed. Do this by further straining the pulp in a fine mesh bag or cheese making bag over the sink or a catch bowl. Tie the bag closed, let it hang and drip liquid for a day. It may become covered with a layer of white mold again, just “shave” it off after it finishes the drip process.
Draining Tomato Pulp
The pulp will be noticeably drier and reduced in volume. If the consistency is thick enough for you, stop here. If not, put the bag between two boards or plates with a weight on top to compress it and further drain moisture out for another day or two.
Drained Tomato Pulp
When it is the consistency that you want, traditionally that of firm dough, remove any mold on the bag, open it up and peel it off of the now-firm pulp.
Fermented Tomato Conserve
The Italians add 25 percent salt to the tomato pulp, but most Americans find this to be way too salty. 10 percent is a good starting point, as it is much easier to add salt than to remove it! Mix the salt in well and let sit. After a few hours knead the mixture just like dough to develop the texture and store it in a jar. It does not need to be refrigerated and will last for several months. In Italy it is usually stored in waxed paper. If you do choose to store it in the refrigerator, it should last for a year.
Fermented Tomato Conserve
The end result will be a preserve that is about 8 – 10 percent of the amount of tomatoes you started with. The flavors will be highly concentrated, so a very small amount will add a tremendous amount of flavor to your dishes, from soups, stews and sauces to omelets, dressings and marinades.
Fermented Pepper Sauce
Fermented pepper sauce is one of the easiest, safest and most delicious methods of preserving your garden’s bountiful harvest of peppers.
Fermented Tomato Conserve (Conserva Cruda Di Pomodoro)
Try this traditional Italian fermented tomato conserve for your huge harvest of heirloom tomatoes.