What’s cooking?

Have you heard of Zombie Probiotics?! Crazy thought, right…but they are real. Seriously, there are dead but undead probiotics in many ancestral foods – sourdough bread, sauerkraut in stews, even the sourdough discard soup I posted last week.
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And, so scientists are proving, these zombie probiotics do us good. How damn cool is that?
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The technical term for these compounds isn’t zombie probiotics (shame) it’s actually paraprobiotics and postbiotics. Along with probiotics and prebiotics that’s quite a lot for a non-sciency head to hold. So I had to read about it a lot!! And then, of course, as it’s soooo cool, I wanted to share. Click on the link in my profile to read the short article explaining what these things are and how they do us good.
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If you were to read it whilst eating a slice of sourdough, I’d consider my work done 🙂

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Home-fermented olives gifted by @thelandofmint.
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These are the best olives I have ever tasted. They are soft, giving when you bite into them, bitter and at the same time sweet. There is salt too, and herbs and a delicate tang of orange zest.
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(And not a drop of omega 6 heavy sunflower oil in sight – yes!)
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I am super-excited about fermenting olives. I was too late this year – all the ones around me had gone to the frantoio (olive mill) before I could get to it. Next year they won’t escape me!

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After fermenting a whole cabbage for #sarmale at Christmas, I had some leaves left over. I loved wrapping using them, and also love the Italian ‘fegatelli’, liver parcelled up and cooked with bay and fennel seeds.
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So was born this experiment: Fermented cabbage-wrapped local pig’s liver, to be baked with onions and shredded sauerkraut in sauerkraut juice.
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My 6-year old son made some of the parcels. It was the first time he’d worked with raw liver and he was enamoured (it’s kinda like slime!)
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Check my story today (saved as the nose-to-tail highlight if you’re coming at this later) for photos of the prep and how we ate it.

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I regularly make the glorious Turkish fermented drink ‘Boza’. I mix cooked millet with a home-made starter and golden cane sugar. After 5 days in the warm it has transformed into a lacto-fermented, fizzy-on-the-tongue, sour, sweet-edged, probiotic-rich drink.
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Having got the basics under my belt, I’m starting to experiment. Here’s the latest two batches both using alternative sweeteners – the first with local, raw honey from @thecreatorscastle as the second using seriously dark unrefined cane sugar. My son’s looking forward to trying the results!

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Home-rendered lard from very-close-to-home raised piggies on home-made spelt sourdough. One of the joys of my eating life 🙂

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I am so happy that #jerusalemartichokes (do you know them as #sunchokes?) are still in season here in Italy as I’ve got quite a taste for them fermented. A week of lactic acid magic, with some added flavours (here garlic and black pepper) and they are crunchy and super yum.
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Look good, don’t they? And fermenting them is a great way to get the prebiotic, inulin (which our resident gut bacteria need to do their work) in a less windy way than eating them unfermented.
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Apparently these can be foraged by waterways here. When I find my personal forging and ancestral preserving wise Nonna (I’m looking for one!), I’ll ask her to show me some 🙂

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Malted barley is ‘supposed’ to be for beer-makers, but it’s a wonderful bread-makers’ ingredient too. I got some ‘chocolate’ malt, very dark, very smoky with delicate chocolate flavour.
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Here it is in a spelt sourdough. This bread has two ‘porridges’ added to the dough. One is of the barley, which I baked as inspired by @morgancarsandbread. The other is of sorghum.
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56% wholegrain spelt, 25% white spelt, 12% barley and 7% sorghum. I’m pretty chuffed with the result considering it’s spelt and there were a lot of add ins.
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It tastes great 🙂
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Video and more chocolate loaf gratuitous photographing in my story today.

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Pork scratchings. I remember those from a looong time ago. Salted and flavoured to the hilt and sold in tiny bags in pubs.
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If you look carefully at my lunch today, you’ll see my home-made equivalent. After a day rendering in the slow cooker the local pig fat we use transforms into not only spreadable lard but also small, crunchy, crazy-tasty pig fat nuggets. My son goes mad for them…oh what am I saying, we all do!
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They are so much better than the bagged, pub-sold version and a great-tasting #zerowaste kitchen practise.
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Ancient cultures all over have prized fat. I feel grateful to have such good quality local source that I can honour and enjoy in this way.

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How gorgeous does this dough look?! It’s a spelt sourdough with two ‘porridges’ mixed in – one of sorghum and the other of chocolate malted barley. The barley (which are the little grains you can see) gives it the dark colour and there’s a fab chocolatey/smoky smell too.
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Check out my story today to see the chocolate malt up close 😉
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Thank you @morgancarsandbread for inspiring me to get back to malts in my sourdough. Looking forward to seeing how this one turns out!

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