Gundru & salt brine Kale stems

In the season of plenty, lower yourself into your garden accepting the life that, in this case, the wonderful plant we call Kale, gives us.

harvest the lowest leaves, allowing the plant to continue growing up from the new leaves in the top middle.

Now this basket of leaves will crush down for me into a 1L jar to ferment for 3 - 4 weeks before drying.

here is the set up

So b/c I think it's a tasty idea, I'm packing jars with stems so tightly that they hold themselves in. Then a little salt, whole garlic (if you like), dill (if you like) whatever, and then some time, will turn these stems into a beautiful, enzyme alive! ferment great for snacks, appetizers, and impressing the inlaws.

fill em nice and full

Now for Gundru, a traditional nepalese ferment. Good friend Miles introduced me to this ferment and writes about it HERE on his GREAT BLOG.

So with an object (i'm using this water bottle full of water) crush the leaves so they get rich and juicy. this ferment requires ONLY crushed Kale leaves, no water, no salt... On this batch I used this knife to cut the leaves after the crushing stage. Our plan is to ferment and then blend the leaves with seeds etc and dehydrate into crackers.

Mash those pre mashed leaves into your container, preferably glass or earthen. The bubbly juice is OUTRAGEOUS!

so here is the beauty. you can see some stems in there (which work just great, you don't need to salt brine them separately, that's just what I did this time.) I cover this with a piece of plastic with a little hole in it or a loose lid. if the lid is tightened on you will need to 'burp it' as the active ferment process of gasses. this will slow down after a week or so in a warm-ish dark place and then it is best to keep the lid on tightly until you are ready to a) eat it b) dry it and eat it. When dried these little devils taste better than the best seaweed you've ever eaten.