Another quick and easy fermentation. My jerk onions. Its a heartbreaking strory to be fair – as i m struggling pretty hard to digest onions so i cant or i should not really eat them. Well… hehehehe try to tell a chef that ‘dont touch that’. Pfffff :) Anyway i m eating them but with moderation. But this… this thing is out from this world. I dont even know why or how i came up with the idea of fermenting with jerk. Well i always loved jerk spicemix (we had a gorgeous dish with jerk yoghurt and beetroot and mackerel nomnom) and i always remembered the smell of fermented onions when anyone dared to open a vacpac bag inside of the restaurant for misenplace :P outrageous. Similar (but different) to kimchi – very very smelly but u know its not a bad rotten vomit smell but a very mature acidic fermented umami smell. Hm. This is how my jerk-onions born.

I have a mini organic veg box coming every Thursday to my door – and i always have the basic (organic and local) vegetables delivered so it means i ALWAYS HAVE big onions. Obviously i am eating them with moderation but i also dont want to waste (after re-planted already a couple in my flower box by the window hahaha) so started to turn them into beautiful fermented jerk onion jars – i enjoy a little bit (like u saw in the video of seed’otto) and share the rest to my friends and workmates. Its still better then just hand over a piece of onion as a gift. LOL.

Here we go.

Peel and chopp your onions (im working with 3 medium sized) – i sliced them but really doesnt matter the way u cut. This works with normal onions, leeks, spring onions, i was using 3 cornered leek, sea leek and wild garlic also.

Cause its season now and my backyard is covered with it i added a couple of handful of 3cornered leeks for color and for extra green mild flavour.

• 

• 

That was the biggest part of the job. Honestly. Now u add your salt and massage in the mix – u will see your onion will start to sweat immediately – and it might make you cry also.

Nice big tbsp of salt then nice big tbsp of jerk spice (feel free to use shop-bought but also enjoy your homemade freestyle if u have).

Nice tbsp of starter and a tbsp of soy sauce. Thats it. All the magic. To be fair this fermentation is working without starter – as the onions got plenty of lactobacillus and adding 2-3% salt should be more than enough to make it work. But i do believe the extra flavor coming with the rye starter and not mentioning the faster fermenting process. My kitchen will smell like an onion jungle in 2 days for sure (im not sure how much i want this though :))). So take it easy and try this proccess even without any starter.

So u massage everything altogether. It does smell pretty good.

Wow. Easy and magical. Now wait 2 weeks. If u are being super desperate – try them after 10 days. The strongness of the raw onions will disappear and become softer with some crazy flavours going on.

Wondering what to do with this? I just want u to open that jar after 2 weeks and … im sure your crazy gourmet braincells will start the engines. Anything. Stir fry – omlette – pasta – u can puree it so u have great salsa but f@ckin delicious as a marinade for tofu, seitan or chicken, fish. Jeeeeez, ANYTHING. ANY F@CKIN THING IS BETTER WITH THIS. :)