hi welcome back to better done yourself.
Today on better done yourself: fermented onions!
I've seen a lot of recipes on the
internet for pickled onions. they'll do
like pickled red onions and different
varieties on that basically just you
know chop up some onions add sugar, salt,
and vinegar and I want to do a little
variation from that. I want to do
fermented onions so they'll be
probiotic. they'll be good for you as
well as just delicious. so basically it's
pretty simple just grab a sack of onions.
I'm gonna go with these I just bought
these in the produce department. these
are just you know your run-of-the-mill
store-bought storage onions. these
are sweet onions but you know not a lot
to do here basically what we're gonna do
is just slice these up and then brine
them as usual and leave them in the
brine solution for a couple of days. so
what I'm interested in though is the way
that we cut them. what you want to do is
when you cut these up you want to think
about your finished product. think about
what you're going to want to end up with
for the product in the jar that you're
gonna be putting on tacos, putting in
salads, putting on hot dogs, putting on
anything you want. I mean, these are good,
just right out of the jar
and have them with the beer for that
matter. but these are awesome with fish
and chips pickled onions or fermented
onions these are awesome
let's um let's look at the what it takes
to cut these up and break these down so
we can get it packed into a jar and
brined. basically what I want to do is
just to cut them in half and then we're
gonna do a little move where we cut off
the top just kind of in a flat motion
and then cut the root end off at an
angle. from there just pop the skin off take that just the
outer paper off next move is we're gonna
French the onion so basically what I
want to do is take and do kind of a cut
that cut the radius of the onion over
over the course of the onion so bring
your fingers back you don't want to cut
it into your fingers a lot of times when
you're slicing things you can use your
knuckle as a guide here and just sort of
bring your your knuckle back as you
bring the knife around so if you want to
make sure you get nice even cuts
keep your fingers tucked keep your your
fingertips out of there just you're
rubbing against your knuckle not your
fingertips and just come around nice
even cuts we rotate it down let's start
your little radius cuts again if your
knuckle in there if you'll need a little
extra guide a little extra guidance and
there you go so grip your onion and we
just basically make a claw you know grab
it like that and see what you've got
you've got these these knuckles here and
we can get the knife so we're just sort
of rubbing the side of the knife against
our knuckle and then we can use that as
our a guide to get into this onion
without getting into our fingertips
let's get the root off let's get the top
off see what I did there nice slide that
down against my knuckles when you drop
your knife sharp side away so just hold
your knife like that take your other
fingers and just wrap them around the
handle of the knife that is an awesome
knife grip and then you can just start
into your onion so again an angle to
take the root off straight chop to do
the top peel up the paper clean off your
board and we repeat pinch your knife get
in there and then just take your take
your wedges out
and we're just going for eventually
we'll be going for speed but right now
we just want to make sure that all our
onion slices are the same thickness we
want just a nice even vegetable chop
whenever we do something like this we
want to make sure everything is the same
size nice thing I found too about
slicing onions you've seen me slice
onions in the past and I've fallen out
of it
and I haven't been able to finish
chopping I just sharpened this knife and
this these grams leaves are sweet onions
they're not you know the real sour type
of onions that you know I'm really gonna
make you cry but I'm finding with a
really sharp knife I'm not bothered you
can hear I'm not sniffling I'm not
congested I'm not crying I'm actually
doing pretty well with the onions today
cuz my knife is so sharp all right I'm
gonna go ahead and chop up the rest of
these onions that we'll get back to the
fermenting
once you've got your jar full of onions
ones that you've so carefully chopped
you can go ahead and brine them and
ferment them like this well you can
think about maybe augmenting the flavor
a little bit add a little bit of spices
make these a little bit more interesting
a couple things that go nice with onions
brown mustard seeds black peppercorns
whole I'm just gonna I'll put in you
know maybe half a dozen or maybe even
like some allspice berries something
like that I think I did mustard seeds
last time I think maybe just a half a
dozen of the allspice berries and a half
a dozen 10 peppercorns and shake them
down in there these are gonna have a
tendency to flow so what I want to do is
get them down towards the bottom of the
jar and they won't float up remember
when we're fermenting anything that
rises above that brine that we pour in
is gonna be a little island that the
mold can land on and make little mold
islands so that's bad so we want to make
sure that anything that's gonna be a
problem like that peppercorn is down
underneath the vegetables from here you
want some kind of a weight think about
this is just a little jelly jar that you
can put down in there you've seen me use
the pickle pebbles or even just like a
plastic bag filled with water and shove
down in there just something to keep the
vegetables below the brine the brine of
course the brine let's take a look at
the brine my brian recipe always stays
the same i do two quarts of warm water
and then my favorite sea salt here i do
three tablespoons sea salt to two quarts
of water
just give that a little stir this is
probably going to be too much you can
you could you know half this recipe
maybe if you're just doing a smaller jar
but so you know what you would have a
quart of water - a tablespoon and a half
a sea salt
let's talk about these ingredients real
quickly this water I live back in the
middle of the woods as you can tell from
some of these videos looking out the
windows in the background so I've got a
private well and this is water from 400
feet below the surface of the ground so
I know it's nice and clean there's no
chlorine there's no fluorine there's no
chloramine there's none of that stuff
that the city puts in the water it's
just it's just a nice clean of water you
can use spring water you can use RO
water you can use filtered water buy
yourself a Brita if you've got nasty
water it you know in your house or your
apartment and and filter it try to do
something to get that the chlorine and
all those those chemicals out of the
water because they really don't they
don't lend anything to the taste of the
ferment and they really they're bad for
the bacteria well they're bad for you
but they're they're not good for the
bacteria that you're trying to foster so
you want nice clean water you want a
nice pure salt this is a brand that I
recommend to everyone this is just
Celina naturally there's a link down
below if you want to grab a bag off of
Amazon but this is just a nice Celtic
gray salt it's got lots of minerals you
can see now that I've dissolved that all
the stuff that's in the water
that's awesome lots of you know not some
nice minerals nots of things going on
that'll really you know make your
bacteria you happy and your sperm n so
essentially you know use grey salt use
pink salt and Himalayan salt is nice is
mined out of the you know the Himalayan
mountains but just don't use iodized
salt again kind of like the chlorine
that iodine that those those metals
those chemicals in your our food
products are gonna kill the bacteria
that we're using to try to make a
healthy ferment so I've got a little bit
didn't dissolve them not gonna sweat it
but let's get enough of this brine in
there to cover up
the onions and you can see they're
starting to float up I'm just gonna
stick this little jar down in there and
hopefully we're gonna get everything
down below the surface of the water
looks like there's a couple things
floatin up this isn't gonna work all
right Plan B ziplock bag some more of
our brine good thing we made lots right
and look what I can do I can take maybe
not that much I can take this plastic
bag and kind of fit it down in there and
shove everything below the surface of
the brine which is now way up here and
so as this ferments what's gonna happen
it's gonna make bubbles it's gonna make
carbon dioxide those bacteria and yeasts
that are naturally on the onions are
gonna ferment the carbohydrates and the
fructose and all the sugars that are in
the onions make lactic acid and carbon
dioxide so you can see blue carbon
dioxide bubbles rising and they'll get
out they'll slip along the edges of the
bag here but no oxygen can get in all
the things that are bad that could
potentially go wrong with this ferment
come from the air and that's really what
we're trying to prevent is anything that
is an aerobic bacteria is gonna cause
problem with this give you off tastes
gonna give off flavors and by doing this
you're gonna keep the oxygen out and the
carbon dioxide can get out of the jar so
you're not gonna have any problems with
this thing exploding like a bomb because
of the carbon dioxide buildup in it so
this is ready this is done we've got our
flavors in there we've got our brine in
there we've got our onions in there I'm
gonna put this in the cabinet for about
a week maybe even two weeks onions can
really kind of like sauerkraut can go a
long time some of your maybe your dill
pickles or some of the other things we
fermented on this channel really you
want to taste that for a couple of days
these onions have a lot of sulfur
compounds in them that really just need
a good long ferment so I'm probably
gonna let this go about two weeks before
I even taste them and then after that
we'll have a look at them see you then
all right so it's been a couple of weeks
now since we cut up
our onions for fermenting and well this
is cool let me zoom in on this for you
when I give this jar a little shake you
can see that bubbles rising up that's a
good sign the fermentation is still
occurring or has occurred anyway and as
these bubbles come up
we know that the lactic acid bacteria
are giving off carbon dioxide and lactic
acid which is gonna pickle our our
vegetables and as this fermentation
continues it creates more and more acid
which is going to preserve and make
better and taste our onions so here
let's get this bag out of here I'm
looking for mold I'm looking for any
little blue green red orange bits
there's nothing really on this sack that
is gonna get me to excited I'm gonna
give it a quick smell and that that's
strong onion that makes me cry that
everyone laughs at is gone that onion
smell it completely completely absent I
can smell the spices that I put in there
which is nice and mmm beautiful crunch
that the onion taste is almost gone the
salt has really diminished and it's good
something stainless steel remember my my
mantra always stainless steel in the in
the kitchen in the fermenting kitchen
but this is great I'm gonna push this
back down a little bit back down into
the lactic acid and brine a little stir
well I'm trying to get down into the jar
and see where we are further below and
these are awesome I'm really happy with
these I think I'm having that onion
sandwich for lunch
they almost taste like the little
cocktails that you put you know in a
martini well my guess would it be a
gimlet but these are delicious this I'm
really happy with the way these onions
fermented and came out and so at this
point just a plastic lid really I don't
like using those metal lids that you
know that their rings and the canning
tops I don't like that metal this is
fairly strong acid I mean it's not you
know gonna eat your
or anything but it's it's better just
use plastic and glass to store your
lactic acid ferments but this is
delicious these will be great on
hamburgers I'm gonna toss some these on
a salad maybe just a spread out on a
piece of buttered bread these are
delicious
these will go into the fridge for as
long as it takes me to eat them probably
the rest of the day but no honestly
they'll last a month at this point these
are well preserved if you want you can
leave them out you don't have to put
them in the refrigerator these are you
know pickled and preserved they're
fermented so there's really nothing more
that can go wrong with them other than
maybe leaving them open if you do leave
them in the pantry give them a stir once
in a while just to kind of you know keep
what is exposed to air you know not
always the same bit of onions but you
know just or maybe just take him out and
give him a shake the the white stuff on
the bottom of the jar that you see that
you know you'll see like a sediment
don't worry about it's it's
scientifically it's fluctuated yeast
cells what that is is just dead yeast
that you know in the course of the
ferments and yeasts were involved they
gave it their all and did what they
could to the ferment and progress the
flavor and the and the you know the
preservation technique and died and left
their corpses at the bottom of the jar
there really are pretty tasteless easier
just to leave on the bottom of the jar
and the dishwasher will take care of
them when it's done but this can go in
the fridge and enjoy enjoy your next
ferment here with the fermented onions
thanks for watching you guys and enjoy
the other fermenting videos be sure to
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