Savoury fruit?! Try mirabelle "olives" or currants with garlic
The big fermentation wave gradually washes away taste stereotypes, and so chefs can enjoy the experiments that localness gives to the foreign formats. Specifically pouring brine over fruit. We're no strangers to pickling - for example "olives" from mirabelle plums, where the base is a salt solution in which the fruit is fermented and prepared for further processing. How does it all happen?
Olives from Kokořínsko by Denisa Šimlová
For fermentation:
- water
- salt (60 g per litre of water)
- mirabelles (small plum fruits, semi-ripe and firm!)
For pickling:
- olive oil
- garlic, sliced
- fresh herbs (thyme, rosemary, sage...)
- edible flowers (lily of the valley, marigold, wild carrot...)
Equipment:
- preserving jars (for fermentation, loading and pickling)
- boiled smooth stone (for loading)
- cloth
- plate
Procedure:
- Start with the salt solution - boil the water and let the salt dissolve in it. Allow to cool.
- Place the pins in a glass. Squeeze the fruit as you do so that as much of it as possible fits inside.
- Pour the solution over the batch of plums and weigh them down with a glass or stone so that all the fruit is submerged. This will prevent mould.
- Close the jar with a half-screwed lid. If you have chosen a smaller jar and it cannot be closed (because of the weight of the jar), cover the opening with a cloth.
- Leave to ferment at room temperature. The jar may start to overflow, so set it on a plate instead.
- After 14 days, the fruit should be slightly sweet, salty and sour and still firm. Taste - and depending on your satisfaction, either move the pins to the fridge or allow them to ferment a little longer.
- The pin olives and the brine should be stored in the fridge, unloaded and in a tightly sealed container.
Step two - oil
The fermented plums are usually pickled further - the olive oil will give them a more intense olive character, while the aroma and flavour will be enhanced by the garlic, herbs and edible flowers.
- Drain the pickled fruit and layer it in a jar. Intersperse with garlic, herbs and flowers.
- Finally, add the oil. The pins must remain below the surface, but the oil must not reach to the very edge - the fruit will still be slightly fermenting, so reserve about two centimetres below the lid.
- Transfer the pickled "olives" to the fridge - in a month or two, they will mellow nicely, the flavours of the ingredients will combine, round out and the saltiness will mellow.
- They will keep for a year or more in the fridge. Just check occasionally to make sure they are submerged and release the pressure from the jar.
Some variations
Sloes, known as "olives of the North", do not have to wait for the first frost. The fruit is put into a cold brine solution and after one or two months it and the brine or oil go into the jar. Instead of oil, (wine or apple) vinegar is also used, but it shifts the flavour to sour. Other times, the sloes are gently boiled with the oil first - this prevents further fermentation. In some recipes, the fermented fruit is dried first and then pickled in oil to intensify the flavour of the fruit and prevent the moisture from spoiling the result.
Cooks used to keep a supply of olives from unripe plums, and Denisa Šimlová in her school of salty fruit fermentation teaches how to enjoy cherries in an unconventional way, which are semi-dried after fermentation and re-hydrated in olive brine. The key is the courage to experiment!
From Japan to Europe
The Czech scene is also learning about Japanese techniques such as umeboshi. Unripe Japanese apricots (Prunus mume or ume) are salted, fermented in their own juice together with the perilla and dried (boshi), usually in the sun. The remaining liquid (umesu, known as umeocet) serves as a brine for the finished umeboshi or flavouring. Fruit that ripens in the European region is treated in a similar way - Denisa makes use of currants, mirabelles and jostaberries (a cross between gooseberry and blackcurrant), elderberries and cherries, and the chefs also try it with gooseberries or extra-sour barberries.
Self-produced umeboshi requires practical experience, but the recipe is not difficult for beginners. Currant balls are flattened into a wide-mouth jar and sprinkled with salt - the Japanese say 8 to 20%, Denisa advises measuring 15% salt, which inhibits alcoholic fermentation. The fruit must be weighed down, and once it has released its juice (after about three days), the jar is gently swirled and left at room temperature or in a cooler room. In about a month, the fruit will have fermented several products - 'umevinegar' and small umeboshi, which are kept in brine, dried or blended into a delicious flavouring paste.
Challenge: Mix half a kilo of pitted and halved plums (or myrobalan) with 40g of salt, place in a sterilised jar and leave in a dark place for about two weeks. Chefs recommend turning the jar once every two days and serving the finished plums just as they are, or partially removing the salty taste under running water.
Salty options
The chapter on salty fermentation is expanded by fermented berries with garlic and edible flowers - The glass is filled about 2 cm below the rim and contains redcurrant berries, two to three cloves of garlic (sliced), edible flowers and a 5% salt solution. A cabbage or other leaf is placed on top of the fruit to prevent the currants from floating above the surface. The same purpose is fulfilled by a weighting stone or a glass - you know the drill. The fermentation time is determined by taste! Under the right conditions, out of sunlight and direct heat, the fermentation period is about five days. The finished fermented wine goes into the fridge.
P.S.: Fruits, most often unripe strawberries or gooseberries, but also other fruits, can be compoted without pre-fermenting - simply omit the sugar from the sweet and sour brine, or mix the liquor in a ratio of 30 g of salt per litre of water.
Extra fermentation:
When fermenting, honey may be added. Examples are whole apples in brine with honey, or spices and dried blackcurrant or cherry leaves. These will not allow the fruit to soften. Mix a tablespoon of honey, 2 to 3 cloves, whole cinnamon, 2 to 3 capsules of cardamom (crushed) and a little citrus peel in a litre of brine (water and a tablespoon of salt). You can substitute mustard, pepper, bay leaves and chilli for the spices, but fermenting at room temperature (5 to 7 days) and refrigerating is essential for flavour. After four weeks, you can eat the apples - raw, baked, grilled, with meat and in desserts.
Quince can also spend time in 3% brine - in 14 days they will run out of sour taste, so they will replace lemons. Some cooks treat citrus fruits like this, for example satsumas or mandarins. Sweeter notes (especially in quince) are achieved by fermentation in honey with water (1:1) and a minimum of salt, but that would make for a honey chapter of its own!
Try sloes in salt , canned by Vláďa Sojka for the blog Zkvašeno. She archives, among other things, a recipe for sloe olives - fermentation is ensured by brine with whey. In the ETZ restaurant, the pickles are also pickled in salt with peach leaves. They ferment for half a year, during which time they acquire a beautiful aroma and taste similar to bitter almonds. The chefs stew meat in them, for example.
Salt-treated berries concentrate all the flavours, including umami, and are therefore used sparingly - with grilled meats and vegetables, in salads, pasta and legumes, in dressings and dips, but also on pizzas and sandwiches, with burrata and fresh cheese, with smoked fish or just for munchies. In short like olives or capers! Especially umeboshi is worth seeing as a flavouring, whether incorporated directly into dishes or dried and blended for seasoning.
Seasonal Tip: Try a few drops of umeboshi brine on sweet juicy tomatoes.
Source: Denisa Simlova, Ambiente chefs, Štangl restaurant
