SELF PRESERVATION

flavour — about half the weight of the salt used.

Popular combinations include red cabbage with fennel seeds, green cabbage with juniper berries and caraway seeds, or turmeric with black pepper and ginger.

BEAN SCENE

The simplest ferment you can do is a brined veg, and green beans are deliciously sharp and crunchy when treated this way. Top and tail the beans, taking any strings and black bits off. Pack your jar tightly, along with any flavours — dill, bay leaf, garlic and chilli all work well — and cover with brine made from 1 large tbsp of fine salt for every litre of water. Cover with the “follower” and weigh down.

This is a fast ferment — it will only need between 3 and 5 days at room temperature — and then you have pickled beans that are crunchy, sour and delicious. These will keep in the fridge for up to eight weeks.

CRUNCH TIME

Other vegetables that are popular to ferment include carrots — either whole baby carrots or cut into rounds — cauliflower cut into florets, red onion, and, of course, cucumbers that are turned into true pickles.

Veg that don’t work include those with high chlorophyll — kale, spinach — or with thin skin and a high water content, such as zucchini.

Sharon also ferments garlic in raw honey, which produces a “lovely caramelised garlic you can spread, and a sweet, garlic liquid you can use as a tonic, drizzle on lamb chop, or on cheese”.

HOT STUFF

A newfound love of Korean food put kimchi on our plates — and our palates — over the past few years and making your own is a great next step on the fermentation journey, Sharon says.

You’ll need to make a paste made from gochugaru — Korean chilli powder — raw sugar, garlic, ginger, tamari and fish sauce. Chop your wombok and salt as you would a kraut and leave overnight. Discard the water — unlike kraut you don’t want to this to dilute the flavour of your kimchi — then cover the wombok with the paste, massaging in, before adding to the jar packing tightly as you go. This is a fast ferment, ready for the fridge in five days.

NEXT STEPS

Sharon says the next level of fermenting fun involves a SCOBY — this stands for symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast — which is used to create kombucha, jun, water kefir and milk kefir.

“It’s the next level of commitment, but there’s an everyday magic in your kitchen,” she says.

“It’s the next level of commitment, but there’s an everyday magic in your kitchen”

SHARON FLYNN

ON FERMENTATION