SAUERKRAUT VARIETIES:

Curious Farm Classic Sauerkraut is fresh and clean-tasting with satisfying depth.  It’s simple, but never ordinary.

Curious Farm Leek-Horseradish Sauerkraut tastes rich and complex enough to stand in as a side-dish during a meal.  Customers are always surprised by its flavor because — during fermentation — the leeks become sweet and the horseradish becomes mellow.  This allows us to taste the warm fullness of the horseradish without its usual bite.

Curious Farm Pink Lady Sauerkraut is proudly gregarious and magenta-hued (from red cabbage).  Pink Lady apples add a bright sass — not sweetness.  This variety looks amazing on an open-faced sandwich, in a composed salad, or on a charcuterie plate.

Curious Farm Ginger-Turmeric Sauerkraut bursts on the palate with Indian-spiced sunshine and antioxidants.  This variety may help improve one’s mood, digestion, and circulation while it pleases the taste-buds because it contains therapeutic amounts of ginger, turmeric and cayenne.

Curious Farm Sauerruben is a revelation.  We make it like our sauerkrauts but use shredded turnips instead of cabbage.  Who knew what depths of flavor hide inside a humble turnip?  All those flavors come out to play in our sauerruben.  Many of our customers won’t try another cabbage-based sauerkraut again now that they’ve discovered this.

Beaverton Farmers Market customers know that Curious Farm brings an ever-changing variety of special sauerkrauts to the Market.  Look forward to more Dark Leafy Dill Sauerkraut and Baja Sauerkraut next year.  I also am experimenting with some sauerkrauts that have lively, tonic herbs in them, and I hope to like them well enough to share them with you in the 2012 market season.

 

ABOUT CURIOUS FARM SAUERKRAUT:

Curious Farm Sauerkrauts are made the old-fashioned way.  We don’t use starters or added cultures.  We use just the right amount of salt — never more — to create a safe fermenting environment for the natural lactobacilli cultures to flourish.

It takes 4 – 8 weeks to ferment a batch of our sauerkraut.  The time of the year, the ambient temperature in the Pickle Lab, and the natural sugar content in the cabbage all play a part in how long it takes to make a great batch of kraut.

Although salt is an important tool in making sauerkraut, there is less than one teaspoon of salt in a cup of Curious Farm Sauerkraut.

Live-cultured sauerkraut not only tastes good — it’s good for you.  Sauerkraut is rich in beneficial lactobacilli, B and C vitamins, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and many antioxidants.  According to a study published in October 2002, in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, Finnish researchers have determined the sauerkraut may be a stronger cancer inhibitor than raw or cooked cabbage because of the isothiocynates that develop during the fermentation process.  Other studies by the University of New Mexico and the American Center for Cancer Research suggest that sauerkraut may be an important food for preventing and healing breast cancer.  (Find links to more information about possible health benefits of eating sauerkraut and other live-cultured foods here.)

And don’t throw out the brine!  Many people drink sauerkraut brine as an elixir.  It adds lovely depth to soups, and it’s delicious in cocktails — even just plain ol’ tomato juice in the morning.