Lactofermenting wild garlic 🌱
Lactofermenting is an awesome method of preservation of many things, and it works wonderfully for wild garlic and other alliums. It is my go to method for creating a seasoning powder and salt - plain wild garlic loses lots of flavour when simply dried, whilst this develops flavours to give a nice umami hit. I use it in most of my cooking!
1) Use 2% salt to weight
2) Massage in the salt - leaves produce a lot of moisture so this should be enough liquid. For more solid things like hogweed or vegetables you’ll need to add water:
3) Add to a container (I use a big saucepan) and keep it submerged (for the anaerobic bacteria to work) - a bowl to weigh down or even just a plastic bag filled with water works
4) Loosely cover (or if you have a fermentation jar with a vent) and leave it - the naturally occurring lactobacillus bacteria develops the flavours. I do my wild garlic for 1.5-2 weeks but a week or so works too.
5) This is done at room temperature - the bacteria slows down in the fridge so would take much longer, and if it’s hot the process goes faster (you can taste as you go).
6) After fermentation, you could just jar and fridge to use the leaves or buds as is (I still have some from a year ago), however I usually dry it out in my dehydrator and then powder it (food processor or pestle and mortar work great).
It’s really easy and can be applied to so many wild and non wild foods. I’ve also done it with hogweed, durian, wild garlic buds, fish, cabbage (kimchi and sauerkraut), cucumber, mushrooms, etc.
