Thanksgiving Leftovers, Pt2
Oh boy. I really had the best intentions: using the ingredients I had on hand; waste not, want not; making delicious snacks while being frugal, all sorts of virtue being expressed in a jar. However, the whole experiment was a sad fizzle, at least to my taste.
The players in this sad story were brussels sprouts and shallots. Maybe I should have expected this to be bad, but I still think something good could have happened. If I had been clever enough to make a kimchi, or if I had used only half the shallots, perhaps this jar would have been a happy innovation. Instead, I did this:
Which looks pretty, right? Shiny, purple shallots layered over crisp, green sprouts, given my standard brine treatment and left to ferment in hope. What I received for my patience though…
The sad, sepia color is the least of it. Despite my love of pickles, sprouts, and onion flavors of all sorts, this jar delivered disappointment on an epic scale. The only flavors are salt and acrid onion united in unholy sourness. Why? I don’t know. Do these two need less salt? Were the kitchen temperatures cooler than usual, perhaps requiring a different brine concentration? I have no idea. There was no bloom or any indication that anything was off in any way, other than it tastes wretched. Maybe shallots and sprouts just don’t want to be together. Anyway, it’s still sitting here on the counter, waiting for me to concede defeat and pitch it. That’s so counter to my initial frugal impulse to do something with the leftovers though that I’m resisting it’s baleful glare and holding on to it. I will just keep my little failure right here until it can be productive… in the compost.