Craft London: How to pickle vegetables with top chef Stevie Parle

As he opens new his project Craft London with Tom Dixon on the Greenwich Peninsula, top chef Stevie Parle shares his tips for how to pickle veg
Fermentation fiend: Stevie Parle
Kate Lough29 April 2015

The fortunes of those wishing to eat near The O2 are changing: hot young chef Stevie Parle (Dock Kitchen, Rotorino) has opened a new restaurant just opposite the arena on what is now being called the Greenwich Peninsula.

Designed in collaboration with Tom Dixon, Craft will be far from just a restaurant: you'll find a coffee roastery, meat cured in-house, a cafe and a cocktail bar with 360 degree views. Outside in the Alys Fowler-designed park, there's a kitchen garden to supply the restaurant, bee keeping, an orchard and even a smoke house. In short, Parle's new project is all about produce and producers. Below, the chef shares his tips on one of his favourite methods: pickling.

“Before I became obsessed with pickling and fermenting a few years ago, my options as a chef were restricted. Either you cooked something or you ate it raw. Now, I feel like there’s a whole new option - a third way - which is fermentation.

We’ve been pickling for thousands of years and the best way is to do it naturally. So instead of using (sometimes expensive) vinegar you just let the lactic acid-forming bacteria that are already present in vegetables do their thing.

For a basic, Craft London-style brine-pickle full of ‘good bacteria’ follow the instructions below. You need a nice strong glass jar, like a kilner, and enough of the brine to completely cover your chosen veg.”

Ingredients

Stevie recommends beetroots, turnips or carrots

1 litre water to 40g salt

Method

Make the brine, we use a 4% brine (so for a litre 40g of fine table salt) by adding hot water to salt and then letting it cool

Scrub, but don’t peel some root vegetables

Cut the vegetables into large wedges

Push the vegetables into a jar

Cover with the cool brine

Seal the lid

Leave the jar in a warm room

Release the pressure in the jar everyday

Taste after 5 days, the vegetables should have a mellow, long acidity they made need a few more days if not very sour

Don’t worry if they’re a little fizzy, it will pass

Store in the fridge to halt the fermentation

Find it: Craft London opens Monday April 27 at Greenwich Square, SE10 0SQ; craft-london.co.uk

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