It is one of Russian specialties, a unique combination of tasty and healthy food, loaded with vitamins C and K, iron and fiber and contains probiotics. It is called sour cabbage, and with all due respect to all things German is much better than pale mushy sausage condiment. It makes a great side for anything – chicken, fish, steak or ribs. It can even be a salad of its own, or mixed with some sliced shallots and topped with olive oil. One of my favorite meals when I was a child was mashed potatoes mixed with sour cabbage.

The cabbage should be fermented in its own juice, therefore it has to be green cabbage usually harvested late in fall. Another traditional ingredient is carrots, it contributes more to the color, not so much to flavor. The only important proportion to remember – 30 grams of salt per kilogram of cabbage. The rest is optional

Ingredients:

• Cabbage 1 kg (2 lbs)
• 2 medium carrots
• Kosher salt 30 gr
• 2 garlic gloves (optional)
• Caraway seeds 1 tsp (optional)

Directions:

• Cut the cabbage into 4 big parts, remove the core
• Make sure you weight what will be chopped, the ratio of cabbage to salt is important
• Shred the carrots
• Chop the cabbage into thin strings, the way you do for the coleslaw
• Add salt, caraway seeds, thinly sliced garlic and several red pepper flakes
• Place everything into a big bowl
• Mix everything with your clean hands, don’t squeeze, just mix to evenly distribute salt, carrots and spices. It is actually tasty right away, somewhat like oversalted coleslaw
• You will see that the cabbage starts extracting the juice when salt touches it.
• Transfer the mix into a glass jar pressing it tight with a spoon, potato masher or just your fist.
• Cover the lid
• Let it sit on the counter top for 3 days, check daily, open the lid and let some extra gas to evaporate, but still pressing it is submerged into the juice.
• It should be ready in 3-4 days, just taste it – it won’t taste like a coleslaw anymore. It will taste like sour cabbage.
• Needs to be refregarated once ready