Mastering Fermentation: Recipes for Making and Cooking with Fermented Foods [A Cookbook]

Product Description A beautifully illustrated and authoritative guide to the art and science of fermented foods, featuring 70+ recipes that progress from simple fermented condiments like vinegars and mustards to more advanced techniques for using wild yeast, fermenting meats, and curing fish. Although fermentation has an ancient history, fermented foods are currently experiencing a renaissance: kombucha, kefir, sauerkraut, and other potent fermentables appeal not only for their health benefits, but also because they are fun, adventurous DIY projects for home cooks of every level. Mastering Fermentation is a beautifully illustrated and authoritative guide to the art and science of fermented foods, featuring more than seventy recipes that allow you to progress from simple fermented condiments like vinegars and mustards to more advanced techniques for using wild yeast starters, fermenting meats, and curing fish. Cooking instructor and author Mary Karlin begins with a solid introduction to the wide world of fermentation, explaining essential equipment, ingredients, processes, and techniques. The diverse chapters cover everything from fermented dairy to grains and breads; legumes, nuts, and aromatics; and fermented beverages. Last but not least, the book concludes with more than twenty globally-inspired recipes that incorporate fermented foods into enticing finished dishes like Grilled Lamb Stuffed with Apricot-Date Chutney and Saffron Yogurt Sauce. Offering an accessible, recipe-driven approach, Mastering Fermentation will inspire and equip you to facilitate the transformative, fascinating process of fermentation, with delicious results. From Booklist The microbial process of fermentation plays a part in many everyday foods. The bacteria, molds, and fungi let loose on raw ingredients transforms them into wholly new foods, sometimes far removed from their original natures. Nearly everyone is familiar with this process that turns grape into wine or barley into beer, but few are as aware that parallel bacterial activity makes cabbage into sauerkraut and milk into cheese or yogurt. Meats, such as corned beef, rely on fermentation for flavor, and every Dane knows what it can do for a smorgasbord’s herring. Karlin aims to make the home cook less daunted by these biological processes. She carefully inventories requisite equipment and gives detailed directions. She usefully catalogs sources of supply for mold starters, specialized yeasts, and the like. As with many food preservation techniques, sanitation and other controls are vital, not just for tasty outcomes but to ensure food safety. A valuable reference book. --Mark Knoblauch Review “Mary Karlin does a lot to render a topic that is beguiling but mysterious in a direct and straightforward way. Mastering Fermentation is full of recipes and ideas that are imminently doable and also delicious. Do try making your own cream cheese and you’ll know its goodness!” —DEBORAH MADISON, author of Vegetable Literacy and Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone     “Mary Karlin has done it again, getting me all excited about the passions we share, as she previously did with cheese making and wood-fired cooking. But this time it’s for the whole magical category of fermentation, and she goes both broad and deep. I could not put this book down, and now I simply want to make everything in it.” —PETER REINHART, author of The Joy of Gluten-Free, Sugar-Free Baking and Artisan Breads Every Day     “If cooking is an art, and baking a science, then fermentation must be akin to magic. Ordinary foods—vegetables, milk, juice, tomatoes, tea—are transformed by it into the most extraordinary pickles, cheeses, vinegars, ketchups, and kombuchas. But, as with all magic, it’s important to stay on the side of light and goodness. Mary Karlin is the sorceress and this is her book of culinary spells.” —KIRI FISHER, owner of The Cheese School of San Francisco   About the Author MARY KARLIN is a passion