Hi, I'm Gardener Scott. Like most gardeners who grow zucchini,
I'm always looking for ways to use the abundant harvest and one way is to make zucchini pickles.
And that's what I'm doing today. So join me as I ferment zucchini.
I grew this
beautiful golden zucchini this year and had a great harvest.
So much that we've had it steamed and grilled and roasted,
and eaten in just about every way you can imagine.
I've even made zucchini bread, but what I haven't done yet, and it's a delicious option, is to make zucchini pickles.
Using a fermentation process I'll take these beautiful zucchinis
and over the course a couple days turn them into a delicious snack.
The fermentation process is very easy.
We'll take our zucchini,
we'll put it into a clean quart jar,
we'll cover it with a brine and then we'll let bacteria do the rest.
The brine is simply salt and water and the bacteria that lives in that type of environment will form
lactic acid and that lactic acid is what ferments
and preserves the zucchini.
Now, we could just stop there with the zucchini in the jar covered by brine.
It'll taste good, be good for us. But I like more depth of flavor in my zucchini pickles.
So today I'll be adding onion,
some wonderful garlic that I harvested recently, and to kick it up a notch,
some cayenne peppers that I grew and dried last year.
I have all of my ingredients laid out, ready to go and I've already made my brine.
As I mentioned, the brine is simply water and salt,
so in my measuring cup
I measured four cups
of filtered water,
and to this I'm adding two tablespoons of salt.
The four cups of water and the two tablespoons of salt is enough for making two quarts
of the fermented zucchini, which is what I'm planning today. The basic recipe is 2 cups of water and 1 tablespoon of salt
for each quart, so you can modify the amount of the brine based on how many
quarts you choose to make.
I have two different sizes of zucchini today, some small tender
and some medium size golden zucchini.
I think these small ones will work best to cut into disks
and I think these big ones will work best to cut into spears.
So I'll begin by cutting the tops off of the zucchini.
Those will go in my compost pile. And then I'll cut
each of these individual ones
into slices and
each of these is a little more than 1/4 inch thick,
and I'll just continue this process,
making these disks that will go into the jar.
For the spears, I'll want the length to match
with the height of the jar.
So I'll actually use the jar to determine how
long I cut these individual spears.
Because I have the other ingredients inside, I'll want to measure
just below where the shoulder of the jar is
and just above where the bottom of the jar is. And so I'll make my cut right there.
So each of the spears will now be tall enough to fit in the jar, and then I'll just
cut it in half.
Let's cut it in half again,
and then
cut in half again.
So each of these zucchini
will give me four spears
to put into the jar.
So now everything is ready to go into the jars.
One thing I'll add first, which is a little unique, is a grape leaf.
And I'll put the grape leaf into the jar first.
Why a grape leaf?
Well the fermentation process
can make the zucchini a little soft, a little soggy. You may have had soggy pickles before.
The tannins in the grape leaves
will help firm up these pickles so they won't be quite as soft,
quite as soggy. If you don't have grape leaves, you could use bay leaves, you could use oak leaves, or you could use
nothing at all. This is just one of those little tricks that can make them a little bit crunchier.
After I've got the grape leaf in,
now I'll add my slice of onion,
which goes all the way down to the bottom.
And then I can begin putting in the
individual pieces of zucchini.
I'll start by just dropping it in.
I'll shake it a little bit to try to make sure it fits all the way down
and relieve some of the air pockets that might develop.
Along the way I'll also put in
some of these garlic cloves for flavor
and I want to put enough zucchini in here
so that when it's full
it comes up
just below the ring on the jar.
With this in place, I'll now add
a couple of these cayenne peppers and just push them down the side of the jar.
And, again, this is one of those things you don't have to do but I like the spiciness that is offers.
Then I'll take
another grape leaf and stick it on top
and then it's ready for the brine. I'll just pour the brine in
until it comes up just below that ring on the jar.
You can use a spatula, a knife,
anything just to try to knock out some of the air bubbles at this point, as well, because
there's a lot of air in here and the liquid will drop a little bit.
Once I release some of those air bubbles, I'll put a little more of the brine in
and now we want to weight this down. For the bacteria that create the lactic acid to
ferment this best, it all needs to be submerged because that bacteria can't live in the presence of air.
You can use anything you want to weigh it down.
In fact right now that grape leaf may be enough to hold all of the zucchini
underneath the brine, but I'll add a glass weight on top
just to be sure
and then I'll take one of these really cool
fermentation tops
and put it on top, secure it with a band, and this is ready to go.
So let's run through that again
using the other jar and some close-ups so you can see exactly what I'm doing,
I'll take a grape leaf and
put it at the bottom of the jar.
Then I take my onion slice,
put it on top of the grape leaf,
use the spatula just to press it all down,
and now I'll add the zucchini. With these spears
I'll put them in so that they form
all the way around the side and fit pretty snugly.
I'll add the garlic, for all that extra flavor,
and then I'll take these cayenne peppers and drop them in,
to add that little bit of zing. I'll finish with
the grape leaf on top.
Remember this helps hold it all under the brine in addition to adding some crunch.
Pour the brine in,
right up to this ring on the jar.
Shake it, try to relieve any air bubbles that might be in there, add a little bit more brine if we need to,
put the glass weight to hold it all down,
put a fermentation lid on it,
screw it on with a band,
and that's all there is to it.
It doesn't take long at all for this zucchini to ferment. In fact, it's only a three to five day
fermentation process
and at that 3-day point,
I'll actually taste it and if I like it I can stop the fermentation by sticking it in the refrigerator
and start to enjoy it. If I want it to ferment a little more, I can give it a few more days.
So for now,
I'm sticking these jars in a nice cool spot and I'll be back
in three days.
It's the end of the third day and now I'm ready to try these zucchini pickles.
After three days,
you'll probably notice that the water will start to get a little cloudy and you may even see some of the bubbles
of carbon dioxide gas that will slowly work their way up to the top of the jar.
I've removed the top,
taken out the weight, and now I can start checking these zucchini pickles.
You'll notice right away if something has gone wrong. If it smells bad
then it probably is bad. It should have a really nice
flavorful fragrance.
So let's move aside this grape leaf
and try one.
It's crunchy, slightly sour. It's got a little bit of heat from that pepper.
The garlic is infused throughout.
This is really good
This is really good. I say this is a keeper.
I can put it in the refrigerator right now at this 3-day point.
I could let it ferment another day or two and that will change the flavor slightly.
It'll affect how
the brine soaks in and the fermentation
continues and how sour the pickle becomes,
but I think it's just slightly sour right now. It's got some really good flavor. So I'm gonna stop the fermentation right now
and I'll have these pickles ready to eat. They probably won't last more than a few days
but this fermentation
process is done. And this project is complete.
So there you have it. That's how
I ferment zucchini.
If you have any comments or questions,
please let me know below. If you haven't subscribed to the Gardener Scott channel you can do so now.
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I'm Gardener Scott.
Enjoy fermenting.
 
