fermentation

nothing quite like just leaving something on the counter to spoil. and not in that strange roommates' relatives' way where they seem to think leaving things in the microwave or oven is akin to putting them in the fridge... no, this is controlled neglect. last month i made my first batch of honest to goodness put 'em up pickles after finally finding what i thought to be an appropriate vessel. i have been bugging my potter friend to make me a pickle crock (with that special lid that keeps the pickles submerged) for quite some time, but she's got other things on her plate (a baby being one), and the crocks online seem outrageously expensive for what they are, plus add in ~10 bucks shipping and there's no way.
then, i found at marshall's a drink decanter thingy for $10! it's glass, so it's non-reactive, and it has about a 3 gallon capacity. all i do is wrap a tea towel around it to keep out the light. the recipe comes directly from the good eats episode: dill-icious (for anyone who likes good eats, i highly recommend this site, it has you-tube links and everything). the only things i added were white peppercorns, green peppercorns, and some grains of paradise along with the black pepper, and they were some of the best pickles i've ever had. co-workers gave rave reviews as well. my second batch is fermenting as i write this, and includes some habeneros and shallots.
the next experiment was kimchi. for this i used the recipe from maangchi.com, omitting the oysters of course, and instead of the fish sauce, i tried using a mixture of soy sauce and vegetarian oyster sauce. there seem to be two different techniques for salting the cabbage, one being to sprinkle salt between the leaves, the other to submerge it and a salt water bath. this first time i did the former, because in all the videos i have seen on kimchi, that's what the people do, but i will be interested to try the latter some time.
the fish sauce substitution proved a little weak, though, and i think the kimchi could have fermented a bit longer. i only let it go two days (the website recommends none at all or one, but my kitchen is quite cold) - i think i'll try a week or so in the future. after the fact i started looking for fish sauce substitutions, and found this on wikipedia, which through my own inattention turned out quite good. i used:

• half a package (about 2 oz.) of kombu
• 4 cups of water
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 3 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 2 tsp. black peppercorns

add the kombu to the cold water then bring to a boil and simmer for 20 min. add the soya, garlic, and peppercorns. here's were inattention helped: the recipe said to reduce down by half; well i started playing a video game and damn near forgot about the sauce. so, an hour later, thankfully not having burned the house down, i was rewarded with a mere half cup of salty, ocean-tasting goodness. i was about to add boiling water to dilute it out, but upon tasting i realized... this is exactly what i was looking for.
and if you aspire to true economy, you can take this nice thick bits of soaked kombu left over, slice them into little 1/2 inch squares, add them to another four cups of cold water with 2 tbs. of soy sauce, simmer for 20 min before adding another 3 tbs. soy, 4 tbs. of rice wine vinegar, and 3 tbs. of sugar. reduce the liquid down to 2-3 tbs. and stir in 3 tbs. of toasted sesame seeds. voila - kombu relish.