With the cucumbers doing so well this year, we’ve had to make a lot of pickles to preserve them! The paste tomatoes have also started coming in, as have the tomatillos. This means that fermented salsa is the way to go for us!
So far we’ve pickled a couple gallons of cucumbers and a few quarts of salsa.
White Wonder cucumber pickles on the left and tomato salsa on the right.
Our salsa has manifested into two distinct kinds:
- Tomatillo salsa
- Tomato salsa
Each of these salsas has a variety of garlic, basil, and jalapeño, and each of them has a touch of the other’s main ingredient (either tomatillo or tomato, depending).
One we’ve pureed the ingredients, we add 1 tablespoon of salt and 4 tablespoons of whey. This recipe is a variation on Sally Fallon’s recipe from her fantastic book, Nourishing Traditions.
This recipe has worked really well for us! We let them sit out in a room temperature space for a few days, “burping” them a few times a day. Daily taste tests reveal when they are ready, and afterwards they get refrigerated until we decide to eat them!
This is the original recipe that we use for pickles (this makes 1 quart):
- Dill
- Minced garlic
- 1 cup of purified water
- 4 tablespoons of whey
- 1 tablespoon of salt
Happy pickling!
.:.