Jerusalem Artichokes, a member of the sunflower family, produces a nutritious tuber, long used as food. These tubers contain inulin, a substance beneficial for intestinal bacteria, but something I have found difficult to digest.
Sally Fallon, Nourishing Traditions, suggests baking the tubers for six hours. We have no oven so this is not an option.
But lacto-fermentation to the rescue! We tried lacto-fermenting raw tubers with little success. Yes, they will ferment, but I still can’t eat them. However, fermenting cooked Jerusalem artichokes produces a food that is both filling and soothing to the stomach and intestinal tract, a marked contrast to eating non-fermented ones.
The Recipe
- Scrub, chop, and boil a quantity of Jerusalem artichoke tubers. Let them cook for about 45 minutes until tender.
- Drain off the water and mash. Set them aside and allow to cool until they are no longer warm to the touch.
- Measure the mashed tubers. If you have an assortment of pint and 1/2 pint jars, you can accommodate almost any measure by varying the head space you leave in the jars.
- Add one tablespoon of Celtic Sea Salt and one Capsule of Spectrabiotic® for each quart of mashed Jerusalem artichoke. Mix well.
- Fill the jars, leaving about one inch of headspace.
- Put on good lids and allow the jars to incubate at room temperature for three days.
- At the end of the incubation period, you refrigerate the jars. You can begin eating immediately.
Note: It seems necessary to use some kind of inoculants for this ferment. Since you are using a cooked vegetable, it is not likely to contain lactobacillus bacteria. I have not tried other inoculants and can only state that Spectrabiotic® produces good results.
By Ellis Hein
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