1. Fermenting Beans and Grains

Join Sandor Katz in in his kitchen! He’ll introduce you to dosa, idli, and other spontaneous fermentations via these simple, traditional techniques for using fermentation to make beans and grains more nutritious and delicious.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Sandor Katz: Hello and welcome. My name is Sandor Katz, and today we will be making dosas and idlis, and talking about some similar kinds of preparations. And first let me start by just explaining what dosas and idlis are. Dosas are crepes, thin, crispy, flat breads, and idlis are little steamed breads.

[00:00:32] And they’re both and they are traditionally eaten in southern India. And they’re made from a batter of lentils and rice, fermented. It’s actually, very easy ferment. There’s no specific starter culture required. The organisms that drive the fermentation are found on the lentils and on [00:01:00] the rice.

[00:01:01] You can make very similar kinds of preparations from other kinds of grains. So first what I’m gonna do is just s- show how to make the batter, and then I have some batter that I made yes- that I made yesterday and I’ll show how to make idlis and dosas. And then I’ll talk about a couple of y- variations using the same kind the s- same idea.

[00:01:27] And it turns out that, like most traditional fermented foods you actually can vary the ingredients quite a bit and, use the the concept. So one important concept to understand is, just as, vegetables all are host to lactic acid bacteria there’s no need to add a culture to your cabbage or your radishes or any other kinds of vegetables that you want to ferment because you know that the organisms are always there, [00:02:00] the same is true of grains and beans.

[00:02:03] This is really what’s behind a, a sourdough starter. You don’t need to add yeast or bacteria to get that going. It’s on the grains. The reason why people use a starter is that it takes a little bit of time and energy to cultivate a critical mass of that activity.

[00:02:24] So once people have developed a, a nice vigorous, bubbly starter, they often like to perpetuate it by saving a little bit of that, feeding it more flour and water, and I have a starter that I’ve had for 25 years. I’ve met people who have these family starters that have been passed down for generations.

[00:02:43] But w- with many grain ferments, such as idli and dosas, there, there’s no necessity to maintain an ongoing starter because the fermentation is quick. Because it’s cooling down, and it’s autumn right now I’ve given the batter [00:03:00] that I made yesterday a full 24 hours to ferment.

[00:03:03] But if I’m doing it in the heat of summer, generally 8 or 12 hours will suffice. All fermentation processes, the the speed of the metabolism of the organisms goes faster in a warmer environment and more slowly in a cooler environment. You just have to take your environment into account.

[00:03:21] Or, somehow warm things up. What I’ve done sometimes is fill a cooler with warm water, and put the batter in a jar in the warm water in the insulated cooler so it stays warm, and it’ll develop more, more rapidly. So the part that I did yesterday is I took some rice I used white jasmine rice, and I took some red lentils, and I soaked them.

[00:03:49] Generally when I make idli I work with two or three or four times as much rice as lentils. Certainly looking at looking at [00:04:00] recipes that exist online and in books, there’s a lot of variation about the proportions. I’ve played around with the proportions.

[00:04:05] I’ve used, twice as many beans as, as, as rice, a- and it works fine. Don’t get too hung up on a, some precise proportion. I generally like to do it with more rice than lentils, but it don’t don’t get too caught up in that. And then I soak them in water.

[00:04:23] I soak them with plenty of water. The, the lentils in particular will, at least double in size. The rice will expand, but not quite as, as dramatically. And I generally soak them overnight, a, a minimum of 8 hours. 12 hours is fine, really as long as 24 hours would be fine. What happens is that the grains absorb water and begin to swell, but also microorganisms, yeasts and bacteria that are present on them, but dormant because of their dryness, are reawakened.

[00:04:57] So the, the soaking is the first [00:05:00] step in, you know, pretty much every, fermentation of grains and beans because it awakens the microorganisms that are there, and also enables the grains or the beans to swell and and soften. Let me say one other thing which may- maybe is obvious, but I just like to state the obvious sometimes to make sure everybody’s on the same page.

[00:05:21] Sometimes people generalize that fermentation is a practice for preservation, and certainly this is true of the fermentation of vegetables, this is true of the fermentation of milk this is true of the fermentation of meat or fish. But i- in fact, nobody ever ferments grains or beans in order to preserve them because they preserve so well in their dry state.

[00:05:50] Here, this this is a prop that I’ll talk about later. This is buckwheat. This is just in a jar sitting on my shelf. These are black-eyed peas. They’re just [00:06:00] sitting in a jar on my shelf. Y- Grains and beans in their mature s- state are dry, and they, as long as they’re kept dry, cool, dark they can preserve for very long periods of time.

[00:06:13] And the same dryness that enables them to preserve so long can sometimes make them difficult to digest. And fermentation pre-digests them to some degree, makes nutrients more easily bioavailable breaks down certain compounds in some beans and grains that we might describe as anti-nutrients.

[00:06:33] It lightens them, it gives them flavor. There’s so many benefits to fermenting them, but among those benefits is not preservation they were pre- they’re preserved best just by keeping them cool and dry. So all I did yesterday is I soaked the rice and I soaked the lentils.

[00:06:50] Let me just say something about the lentils that I’m using. These are red lentils that are, very widely and easily available in the United States. [00:07:00] This is not the traditional lentil that is used in Southern India to make dosas and idlis. Typically what they’re using is a type of lentil called urad dal which is a, a, a white lentil with a black skin.

[00:07:14] And it’s wonderful to make it with them. I don’t have easy access to them. And it turns out that the process is really very versatile. I’ve even tried it with lima beans and millet. What’s classically used is urad dal and rice. But, you can really vary the process.

[00:07:30] I soaked these in water overnight, and they have been swelling, and now what I’m gonna do is grind them into a batter. So I’ll use a little bit of the of the water. What I’m gonna do is drain the soaking water into a larger, to a larger cup. And I have a little blender here, and I’ll just go ahead and get the Ice into the blender. [00:08:00] And then the, with the lentils here I soaked the lentils in water as well, but I added a few grains of fenugreek which is an, an Indian spice, a se- a seed. And I’ve learned that this is frequently done.

[00:08:15] But I, I didn’t learn this until I had already been making dosas for years. And I inadvertently learned that it can be done without adding the fenugreek at all. So I have my rice and my lentils in the blender together. And now I’m just gonna add a little bit of the combined soaking water.

[00:08:38] Now, basically you need to add some of the water to for it to effectively get ground up. But you wanna add as little water as possible. The last thing you wanna do is make this too watery. It needs some body for in, in order for the batter to rise. And and then, y- in, in, in the [00:09:00] end, you make the dosa batter a little bit more watery because you’re trying to make a thin crepe, and the idli batter needs to be a little bit thicker.

[00:09:09] But I really always try to, make it as thick as possible and then just water it down with a little bit more water at the time that I’m making my dosas, if necessary.

[00:09:19] But I I want there to be some body in these.

[00:09:22] And then my blender is just out of view, but you will definitely hear it.

[00:09:43] Let’s stir this around a little bit

[00:09:48] Blender performance art via Zoom[00:10:00]

[00:10:23] Okay, we’ll give it one more go

[00:10:41] Okay. So now we’ve got a nice smooth batter, and I’m pouring it into a jar I always wanna use I always wanna leave it to rise in a jar that’s at least twice as [00:11:00] big as the volume of batter that I have. Because y- it’ll rise. You might not get… It might not fully double, but you’ll get a very significant a rise to it.

[00:11:12] So this is the fresh batter that we just made

[00:11:19] And then here, this is a batter that I made yesterday. And I used, the same amounts. And you can see that it has quite nearly doubled. Oh, I’m seeing so, okay so there are, because we are online and people are watching from all over the world generally in India, the the, the tool that people are using to make this is not a blender. There’s a tool called a wet grinder that, that basically use it has, has stones rolling around and crushes it rather than cutting it into little pieces.

[00:11:54] But, I haven’t seen many wet grinders in kitchens in the US. If you have a wet grinder, by all [00:12:00] means, that is the ideal tool to use. That’s the traditional tool to use. But you work with what you got. I, a- actually, if you wanna work… if you have a, a a mortar and pestle and it’s deep enough, you can you can grind it by hand.

[00:12:14] There’s lots of different technologies you can use. The blender seems like it, it does a it does a, a fine job. So now the one other thing that I add to the batter is a little bit of salt. And honestly, it doesn’t matter much if you add the salt now at the beginning to be in there during the fermentation or to add it right before you make the dosas.

[00:12:37] I just have come to the habit of adding it now. I’m adding a, I’m adding a pinch of salt. I’m not adding a lot, and then I generally will taste my first dosa just to evaluate the salt. So that’s it. That’s how simple it is, and then you just leave this for, eight hours in hot weather up to, let’s say, 36 [00:13:00] hours if you really have a cool kitchen where it’ll go more slowly.

[00:13:04] And then it’s just going to spontaneously rise on the basis of yeast and bacteria that are just always present on the rice and on the lentils. Let me talk for one moment about this idea of improved nutrient bioavailability from the fermentation, but there have been some really good studies specifically focused on idli and dosa, where they cook some lentils and rice and send them to a lab for analysis.

[00:13:38] Then they take the same amount of lentils and rice, and they soak them, grind them into a batter ferment them, and then make either dosas or idlis and then send them to the lab for analysis. And they always can find higher measurable levels of dietary minerals: calcium, [00:14:00] iron. And it’s because, Grain grains and beans, the the minerals in them are generally tied into these chemical bonds that are called phytate bonds that our bodies are not generally able to break down.

[00:14:18] But a bacterial fermentation can break them down. So they get separated, and they become more bioavailable to us as a result. So that, that’s really the the greatest nutritional benefit of this process. Of course, the other part of the benefit is just wonderful flavor and and textures.

[00:14:37] Okay, so this is the risen batter that I’ve, that I made yesterday. And let’s see. I don’t know how well you’ll be able to see in this, but I’m gonna try to show you without spilling it on my computer. But it’s got a nice bubbliness to it, and that, that’s what you’ll see in a mature batter, is it’s bubbly.

[00:14:56] So now I’m gonna make two different foods. Dosas we’ll [00:15:00] make using a cast iron pan, A crepe pan. But the idlis require a special tool, and this is called an idli stand. And they’re pretty widely available. I just found, I found the… This is the, the, the second one that I’ve had.

[00:15:20] And I found them both just available in Indian markets. And this one has six levels, and then each level has four indentations. And you can make a total of up to 24 idlis at a time. Which makes them, very easy and convenient to make, especially, as, as compared to making crepes, which, I sometimes make…

[00:15:43] have two pans going at once, so I can have two at once. But then, each one takes a few minutes. And if I’m trying to cook for a crowd, it’s the, it’s a slower process. The idlis you can make a bunch at once. They’re very different. They’re, the, the idlis are these spongy, soft [00:16:00] things.

[00:16:00] A, a friend of mine once compared them to matzah balls for, any of you who are familiar with matzah balls. But they’re, they’re soft. They’re chewy. They’re really lovely. The crepes on the other hand are thin and crispy. So okay, so I have my my, my idli stand.

[00:16:19] And the… if you go shopping online, you’ll see that there are a lot of idli steamers that have a dedicated steamer unit that’s part of them, and that, that’s one style. The ones that I have y- you just have to you have to have a pot that they can, that this can fit inside of, and then it sits on a half an inch of water.

[00:16:44] And then this stand, the stand is above it. And then you need a, a, a tight-fitting top for it so that you can steam it inside that. But a, a tool like this, generally you’re talking less than $20. Generally what I do is I [00:17:00] just brush, I brush with oil. I use a little pastry brush, and I just brush each one with oil.

[00:17:07] I’m just gonna, I’m just gonna make two levels of it right now. I’ll make eight of, eight of the idlis. Lightly brushing oil in there. I’ve done it with, I’ve done it without. The oil does not completely prevent any kind of sticking you end up having to clean each one either way.

[00:17:26] But I think that on, on balance I prefer to oil them, and then I just mix my my batter nicely to, to make sure that if any solids are separating out from liquids, it’s separated, and then I put a little bit of that batter in each of these. I always wanna leave a little bit of room for rising because assuming that the batter is that the batter is still rising, once it gets in that hot environment, it will it will rise.

[00:17:52] Before the organisms perish, they will rise the idlis up a little bit. Okay, so that’s four, and [00:18:00] then I’m gonna put the second layer on top of the first layer. But what I’m… Instead of putting them directly on top, I turn it ajar so that the bottom of each of the second layer is in between two of the first layer.

[00:18:14] It’s just a strategy for giving them a little bit more rising room. And go ahead and fill the second layer. And then, I can go up to my six layers and make 24 at a time. But just because I also wanna demonstrate the doses, and they’re really better hot than hours later cold.

[00:18:37] I’m just gonna cook a few right now to show you all. Using the red lentils you’ll notice that the batter is this pink color. But once it cooks, it loses that pinkness. So now I’m gonna put this in the pot that I have Put the top on the pot, and now I’m just gonna put it on the stove and put a light under it, and [00:19:00] then it’ll take 15 or 20 minutes.

[00:19:02] Be right back.

[00:19:13] I think with all this multitasking, I should use my timer. So I’m gonna give it

[00:19:19] 20 minutes

[00:19:25] Okay, great. So that’s how you make the idlis, and now they’re steaming over my shoulder. Really simple. We just soaked the lentils with a little bit of fenugreek, soaked the rice, put them in a blender, blended them into a smooth batter. Add a little bit of salt, let them ferment for 24 hours.

[00:19:44] It pretty much doubled, and then now I’m taking some of that batter and steaming it in the idli steamer to make the idlis. And then what we’ll do with the rest of the batter is we’ll make some we’ll make some dosas. Let me talk a little bit about how… The, the [00:20:00] idlis when I ate them in India, although I was only in the north of India, I was never in, in the south of India.

[00:20:07] But they were mostly served with a a ve- a, a vegetable dal called a sambar. And then with some chutneys as well. In my book, Wild Fermentation, I actually have a dosa recipe. I have the idli and dosa recipes, but I also have a sambar recipe and a coconut chutney recipe.

[00:20:29] Dosas, if you go to a South Indian restaurant and you order dosas, you have… You’re given a choice of different kinds of stuffings. Generally they’re served rolled up with stuffing in, inside. Di- different kinds of stuffings. I just, I roll different kinds of things in them.

[00:20:45] I’ve had beautiful cooked greens rolled into dosas. I’ve eaten them a lot for breakfast with a egg fried on top. Always I love to have, some sort of a, like a chutney, or sometimes I’ll put a little kimchi or sauerkraut. But, [00:21:00] it’s a wonderful, it’s a it’s a wonderful vehicle for whatever you wanna eat.

[00:21:04] Because it’s it’s crunchy and delicious on its own without any of those e- embellishments. So now I’m gonna just heat up the, the, the crepe pan to start making some dosas. And then we’re gonna switch camera views so that you’re closer to my stove. But

[00:21:19] n- not yet. W- I wanna heat it up for a minute

[00:21:34] Okay So while that heats I’m just gonna talk about a couple of related variations. So first of all I pulled out my buckwheat. So this is raw, untoasted buckwheat. But in a process that’s almost identical to this I’ve learned how to make a really beautiful, delicious, totally gluten-free bread.

[00:21:57] All I do is I soak the raw [00:22:00] buckwheat overnight in water, then I put it in the blender. Ge- w- with this, because the, the buckwheat is so mucilaginous, and the soaking water becomes so mucilaginous, I have to drain away the soaking water and add a little bit of fresh water into the blender, and I blend it into a smooth batter, exactly as we did for the idli and dosa batter.

[00:22:22] And then add a little bit of salt to that, and I leave that to ferment, generally about 24 hours until I see a significant rise. And then what I do is I grease up a loaf pan really well. This is v- this ends up being a very sticky batter, so I use a lot of oil and grease up a loaf pan.

[00:22:42] And then what I do to really make sure I can get it out is I take little seeds, sesame seeds and/or poppy seeds, and I just coat the bottom, and the corners, and the sides as best I can of the pan with the seeds, and then I pour this very sticky batter in there, give it [00:23:00] another hour or two of rising in the pan, and then I bake it for about an hour and 15 minutes at 350 degrees.

[00:23:07] You’ll also find that recipe in Wild Fermentation, or, in this 2016 revised edition of Wild Fermentation, not in the originally, original 2003 version of it. And I call that infinite buckwheat bread, and I actually learned how to make this from some young people who I met in in Canada, in Nova Scotia a, a few years ago.

[00:23:30] But the concept is exactly the same as making idli or dosa, where you’re just, you’re soaking the grain, the buckwheat in this case. Then you’re taking the soaked grain and blending it into a batter, and just based on spontaneous fermentation from the organisms that are present on the buckwheat, you get a, a really nice rise, and it makes a beautiful bread, and by the way, you can also do pancakes using a batter just like that.

[00:23:56] Another variation on this theme these are black-eyed [00:24:00] peas. And so if there’s a, an Afro Brazilian ferment called acajé that’s made from a batter of black-eyed peas, and it’s exactly the same process you soak the beans. Then you grind them into a batter. There there’s one sort of additional process which people in Brazil can get very meticulous about, which is removing the skins from the soaked beans.

[00:24:25] In learning how to do this, I have spent hours, trying to remove every single skin from the batter. And the conclusion that I’ve come to for me is I like the fiber. It doesn’t detract at all from the texture of the acaraje. And so I’ve really stopped taking the skins off but, certainly a Brazilian traditionalist would always take the skins off.

[00:24:48] And then blend it into a batter, let it ferment and rise. Make sure you add some salt into that. And then after it’s risen the final step before you [00:25:00] make these little fry breads, or you can also do steamed breads, or you can also do something like a thin pancake, like a dosa. But if you if you beat it basically what it does is it does, y- the same kind of restructuring of protein as happens when you beat egg whites or you whip cream.

[00:25:18] And so it gets thicker and firmer and changes the texture of it. So you can make these beautiful fry breads, acarajes with the black-eyed peas. Okay. Over my shoulder I see that we have steam in the idli. I’m turning that down. And I think that the, the, the pan for the dosas is is ready.

[00:25:37] So I’m gonna go over there and we’re gonna switch camera views.

[00:25:49] Okay. Hope that hope I’ve got… Looks like I’m pretty usable over here. So then the one thing I’m gonna do before I make these is I’m gonna add a little bit of [00:26:00] water to

[00:26:00] the

[00:26:01] batter. And it just from dough to thin batter is a continuum, depending on what the proportion of water is.

[00:26:09] For certain applications, we wanna have thinner, a thinner a batter, just takes a little bit more water. My main advice in this regard is add water a little bit at a time, because if it gets too thin, then you’re not gonna have any substance to cook. So I’ve heated up this pan. I’m gonna turn this down now.

[00:26:29] And I just wanna show you it took me years to figure out how to make dosas well. And the biggest problem I was having is that I was always putting too much oil on. And what what I learned from a lovely Indian woman who I met, is to use a piece of the onion just to make sure the pan isn’t dry, and there’s enough oil in that onion to oil it.

[00:26:52] You don’t wanna have a lot of excess oil. More oil is really only going [00:27:00] to, create more problems with sticking. We don’t wanna have totally dry patches but that’s literally enough oil. And then you’ll see midway through the process, I’ll drizzle a little bit of oil around the edges just to enhance the crispiness. Now what I’m gonna do for this is take two scoop- I’m gonna take two scoops from this.

[00:27:20] One, two. Okay, we’re good. I’ll give it a little more, two and a half. Okay. Now, the technique that I use is gravity. I just use my wrist and gravity, and just try to get the batter to flow as much as it will in each direction, and then that’s great. And then we’re already seeing these little bubbles and and it’s fun to watch it cook because y- the, the, the, the color changes as, as it cooks, and it goes from this redder color to this [00:28:00] whiter color.

[00:28:02] And so now that it’s almost cooked to the edge, I’m just gonna take a little bit of oil and just drizzle right around the edge, a little bit of oil, and then just get in all around make sure that there’s nowhere where it’s sticking. And I can also see that the

[00:28:26] The edges is getting a nice brown to it. And then I’ll just flip it over

[00:28:47] And then we just have to be patient and give it a minute or two. Now, if I was putting an egg on it, this is the point at which I would just crack an egg on this side on, on the top of it, and then I [00:29:00] have a little cover that I would put over it so that the egg would so that the egg would cook.

[00:29:08] And that’s how simple it is to to make dosas in India. It’s fermentation does not need to be something that is, extremely challenging. Most fermentation traditions are, extremely simple, and most fermentation traditions rely upon wild fermentation.

[00:29:26] The organisms that are just spontaneously present on all. There are certain processes that are now mostly done where we include some specific starter. But really un- until relatively recently, there have no, there have been no sources of starters like this for people to use, so people had to, work primarily with the organisms that are just on all of the food that that we eat.

[00:29:53] And I just wanna cook this on the second half until it until it gets a little bit golden. Let’s give it [00:30:00] another another moment. And then after, after we cook this, then we can we can turn to some questions. And I know that the behind-the-scenes people are collecting questions.

[00:30:11] I see, I, I see that there’s some questions on the Q&A, but let’s just wait until this is done, and I’ll go to the other camera and, okay

[00:30:29] And I didn’t prepare some, I didn’t prepare some beautiful stuff. Maybe I can put something along there, and then I can roll this up, or I can break off pieces and, use it to pick up pieces of food. It’s very versatile. Okay, so the, the gnudi are still steaming, and I’m gonna go over to the other camera, and we’ll start addressing questions

[00:30:55] Okay So Josh, are there [00:31:00] any are there any questions I could start addressing? I think while you’re trying to find the questions, I’m just gonna, I’m gonna just have a little taste of this.

[00:31:10] Josh Wilder: I don’t blame you. I think everyone’s kinda getting hungry looking at what you put together. So the first question that came in it, someone was asking if you could describe a little bit more about the bioactivity that’s contained and some more details on that

[00:31:27] Sandor Katz: The bioactivity that’s contained I don’t know. I don’t know what more there is to say except that, on every grain of rice, on every lentil, on every grain of wheat, on every lima bean, on every soybean, on every pinto bean on like all, all grains and beans are populated by elaborate communities of microorganisms, another form of life.

[00:31:50] And among the community of microorganisms that are always gonna be found on grains and beans are yeasts and lactic acid bacteria. [00:32:00] And and then, they’re dormant on the grains and the beans that are mature and dry, but once you add water, they’re reawakened. And whether it’s talking, wh- whether you’re talking about, your sourdough starter or your wheat dough rising, or you’re talking about your idlis or dosas, or you’re talking about your acaraje, or you’re talking about your buckwheat bread, or y- these things will just inevitably start to get bubbly and rise, and it’s just gonna be those yeasts and lactic bacteria that are always present there.

[00:32:33] And there are, it’s the lactic acid bacteria that are gonna be breaking down those phytate bonds and making the minerals more bioavailable. Lactic acid bacteria are also, creating acidic flavors and contributing to flavor complexity in whatever the finished product is.

[00:32:51] That’s, it’s really simple. It’s just the organisms that are there. And and of course the, the community’s more complex than that. You’ll always find, different [00:33:00] strains of yeast, different strains of lactic bacteria, but you can always count on there being yeasts and lactic bacteria there as as ba- as part of it.

[00:33:12] Josh Wilder: Great. Yeah, absolutely. Someone asked about if you could describe again your method for using the onion to spread oil in the pan.

[00:33:20] Sandor Katz: Yeah, sure. So I’m just gonna bring it over there

[00:33:28] So an onion just has natural oils. And so simply putting the onion on a warm pan will release some, some oils onto the pan. And then the other thing is that since, at the, at, at the… Right before I flip them, I add a little bit of oil a- around. Then, when I put the next one on, I’ll use the onion just to make sure that oil gets spread, and if there’s a spot where there’s like a little puddle of oil, the onion will pick that up.

[00:33:58] So we’re, so the, [00:34:00] the onion is both a source of some oil, and it helps us to spread the oil. That’s how I do it. I didn’t always do it that way. You can do, you can really do the same thing with like a, a little piece of a rag or a paper towel. But, I really like this this onion hack.

[00:34:16] And and then in the end, when I make dinner tonight, I’ll probably chop this onion up into in, in, into my food. So I’m not throwing it away, but it just seems like a really, good way to very lightly oil a pan. And as I said, like the, the, the, for the first, 5, 10 years that I was making dosas or trying to make dosas, I kept running into problems because I was making the pan too oily.

[00:34:40] And and the excess of oil would end up making the batter stick or, a watery batter like this.

[00:34:47] Josh Wilder: Yeah. Excellent. I love that. There’s a couple questions about the rice you’re using. If you’ve used bre- brown rice, for example, instead of white, is the texture affected?

[00:34:57] Sandor Katz: I’ve made a lot… first of all, I should say that the [00:35:00] way it’s typically made in India would be with white rice. But no, I’ve played around. I’ve used bl- brown rice. Brown rice wor- works, works absolutely fine. And I don’t think that it changed the texture in a negative way at all.

[00:35:14] Josh Wilder: Okay. And Lissa also asks if black rice or red rice would work, for example. She says she’s a fan of super crispy dosa, and the oil around the outside edge sounds like it might just do the trick.

[00:35:28] Sandor Katz: Yeah. Sure. I’ve never done it with black rice or white rice, but I’ve tried it with different styles of rice.

[00:35:34] I’ve tried it with brown rice. I’ve s- I’ve tried it with grains that aren’t rice, and I think that, I think that this general process will work with, any kind of grain, any kind of bean. So I would absolutely encourage anybody to experiment with black rice, red rice any, any kind of rice they like.

[00:35:53] Okay, that’s the timer telling me that the idlis are are ready. So let me let me turn that off.[00:36:00]

[00:36:08] Okay. So now we’ve got our idlis, and I’ll get a spoon and scoop one out

[00:36:23] Okay. Yeah.

[00:36:24] We’ll let this, we’ll let this sit for a minute because I just squashed it a little bit. I’m pulling it out of there. Let me just say one thing about the idea of using these batters beyond the day when the fermentation is right. I made this batter yesterday, and I just made some idli and dosa with it.

[00:36:43] And like any kind of a dough or batter, if I just leave it at ambient temperature, it’s going to like rise as much as it can, and then it’s going to collapse. It’ll basically run out of nutrients for the [00:37:00] bacteria. Here, my, the, the light is– The light changes in the late afternoon, and we get more glare in here.

[00:37:06] So the when the yeast and bacteria exhaust all the nutrients available to them and they can’t grow anymore, at some point it will collapse, and you certainly won’t get any rising during the cooking. But it turns out that you can store these in the refrigerator, and in fact, in many, in many Indian grocery stores, you can make pre-made– you can buy pre-made batter for idlis and dosas.

[00:37:30] And you can see how simple it is to make. There’s really no reason why you need to, buy a pre-made batter, but you can store it in the refrigerator. So what I’ll end up doing with whatever I don’t use in dinner tonight is I’ll just store it in the refrigerator, and in the coming days, I’ll have ready dosa batter and make dosas for breakfast and just o-on the go.

[00:37:53] So I learned that from a, a woman I met who has a dosa truck up in Brattleboro, Vermont. But [00:38:00] she and her husband who run the truck, they just make their batter once a week, and then they ferment it, and then they store it in the refrigerator, and then they have batter that they can use all week long in their food truck

[00:38:14] Any more questions?

[00:38:17] Josh Wilder: Yeah. There’s a question I think to you, Dis- … Oh, I think I think there’s some auto-correct going on, but do you forage for wild yeast for any of your ferments? That’s, I think that’s what they’re trying to say.

[00:38:29] Sandor Katz: I wouldn’t say that I forage for it, but, it’s there on everything.

[00:38:33] Y- I didn’t have to forage for the yeast for this because it’s already on the, it’s already on the lentils and already on the rice. So sure, I’ve met people who are brewers, in particular, who are, foraging for yeasts to add. But, the reason why you have to add yeast to beer is ’cause you have to cook it.

[00:38:53] But, most ferments, you’re fermenting them before you cook them. With something like this there’s just no need to add [00:39:00] a, a, a yeast to it. But, in terms of the possibility of foraging for yeast, all botanical all botanicals are gonna have yeast, and particularly the, you know, the sweet parts of them, fruits and flowers will always have a, a, a yeast on them.

[00:39:14] So y- yeasts are everywhere. And very easy to find in the natural world in your yard, in a nearby park. Yeasts are just very easy to find in, all environments.

[00:39:29] Josh Wilder: Okay. Great. Also there’s a question about what other ferments have you been interested in, are you interested in right now?

[00:39:39] Sandor Katz: I’m just- … on an ongoing way, I’m- Yeah … just interested in in, in all kinds of ferments. Yesterday I did a class where I made some sauerkraut. And in the sauerkraut are daikon radishes that, that just came out of my garden and are just beginning to be ripe.

[00:39:54] This week I also made chestnut koji. So I have three chestnut trees outside of my house, and I’ve been [00:40:00] harvesting chestnuts and processing chestnuts and drying chestnuts. But I made some chestnut koji, and yesterday I made a, a, a miso with chestnut koji and pinto beans. And I also made shio koji with a, a chestnut koji.

[00:40:19] I made tempeh the other week. I’ve been doing lots of baking using my sourdough. And a sourdough is not a very different concept from what we’ve been talking about. So this is my, this is my wheat sourdough. Okay, you can see the beautiful bubble matrix of it. Through the sides.

[00:40:35] This is in a very small jar. This is in a, cup size Mason jar. It’s possible this will expand out. No, this is perfect. So the way I start a sourdough is really no different from what we’ve been doing here. And it, it’s really just like instead of using whole grain wheat, I, it, I use milled wheat that’s already milled into flour, and then I just add water to it.

[00:40:59] And, the [00:41:00] water awakens the bacteria and yeast that are there. And then there’s a little bit of technique, too. As it begins to get bubbly, then you wanna feed it again. And by feeding it, I mean feed it a higher proportion of fresh material. So generally, like in, in most guides to starting sourdough they tell you to keep on throwing away half of it so that you can give it a proper feeding of, more fresh material.

[00:41:23] And the significance of feeding it more fresh material is that it, you dilute the acidity, and in a lower acid environment, the yeast can really flourish. So if you keep on eating, adding a little bit of flour, you’ll be g- you’ll be making an extremely sour environment, an ex- extremely acidic environment that will favor the lactic bacteria over the yeast.

[00:41:45] But by repeatedly diluting it with fresh water and fresh flour you’re creating an environment that’s hospitable to the, to, to the yeast as, as well. Then, when I do inevitably, need to discard some sourdough, what [00:42:00] I generally do instead of discarding it is I make pancakes.

[00:42:04] And so this is a pancake batter that I started just this morning. And the wheat is, is basically just connective tissue. Because I have grated squash in there, and carrots and red cabbage, and I put some leftover rice in it. And, it ends up being just an ongoing food recycling process for me.

[00:42:26] So I’m, putting leftover vegetables, putting leftover grains into this, and then, I’ll give this until tomorrow, and then what I expect is that tomorrow morning it will have risen. And it’ll be a lot lighter because it’ll have this matrix of bubbles of carbon dioxide in it, which will lighten the whole thing.

[00:42:43] And then I’ll add an egg, and then I’ll add a little bit of cheese, and then I’ll start making pancakes. And I’ll, leave it out for a couple of… i’ll… It’ll continue to ferment as, I make a few pancakes tomorrow, and then it’ll continue fermenting. If it goes more than a couple of days, then I’ll move it to the refrigerator [00:43:00] for longer term storage.

[00:43:01] But usually we eat it up before it gets to that point.

[00:43:06] Josh Wilder: Great. That’s really interesting. There’s a, there, there’s a comment in the chat section saying that the, in their experience, the batter can be refrigerated for at least a week. And they’re say adding salt for them tends to be a bit more watery.

[00:43:20] Is that a experience you’ve had at all?

[00:43:23] Sandor Katz: I’m sorry. Adding salt- I, I- … makes it more watery?

[00:43:27] Josh Wilder: Yeah. That, that, yeah

[00:43:31] Sandor Katz: I don’t know. I just always add salt to it. I feel like if there’s no salt in it… it… not just doses or Italy’s, just as well bread or sourdough pancakes or, really anything I ever make with grains or or beans. I just feel like salt is essential, and it just, it just tastes like something fundamental is missing if there if there’s no salt.

[00:43:54] So I just always I just always add a small proportion of salt. If I was [00:44:00] if I was measuring, I probably would say, somewhere around like one and a half percent salt. Like that’s a level of salt that tastes really good to me. But usually I don’t measure it.

[00:44:09] Usually I’ll just add a sprinkle of salt and and then taste the first one, and then if necessary, add a little bit more salt.

[00:44:17] Josh Wilder: Okay. They do mention also that they add salt when they’re ready to cook and… or use, but not before,

[00:44:22] Sandor Katz: Yeah … adding. No, I think that that’s the typical time that people add salt.

[00:44:26] I just feel like it’s easier for me to remember at the time when I make the, when I make the batter, and I have never experienced that the salt inhibits the fermentation in any meaningful way. So y- whenever you’ll, when- whenever you’ll remember to add it is, it’s fi- there’s no need to add it at the beginning of the process.

[00:44:44] It’s fine to add it at the end. I just found that I was regularly forgetting to add the salt at the end, so it was just easier for me to remember to do it. And I would say in general, the requirements of most of these fermented foods are not so [00:45:00] exacting and it’s okay to adapt them to to, to your needs.

[00:45:05] When I was finding that I was like consistently forgetting to add salt at the time that I was cooking them, it just w- it just… I realized why don’t I just add salt while I’m mixing everything together and so I do it that way and and it’s worked fine for me.

[00:45:20] Nothing, There’s no benefit to adding the salt earlier. And if you can remem- remember to add the salt before you cook them, then it’s fine to add the salt at that time.

[00:45:30] Josh Wilder: Okay, great. A little bit of an esoteric question, but someone asked, based on the topic of your new book how do you lean on fermentation to deal with the events of 2020?

[00:45:44] Sandor Katz: I’m not sure that I would say that I, that I lean on fermentation to, to rely on events, but I think it’s just like a, it’s a useful and interesting metaphor to think about. And I, I’m, I certainly didn’t make up this metaphor.

[00:45:58] Oh, let me just

[00:45:59] show my… [00:46:00]

[00:46:01] This is my brand new book. Just came out. Fermentation as Metaphor. And this is not a how-to book. You’re not gonna find, like, how to make idlis and dosas, how to make sauerkraut, how to make koji, how to make tempeh, how to make anything. It’s really a book reflecting on the ways in which in the English language we use fermentation in metaphorical ways as well as literal ways.

[00:46:28] And when I first became obsessed with all things fermented, which is like almost 30 years ago I just started noticing that in all kinds of different articles and books, I would just see people use the word fermentation in these metaphorical ways. Often it was talking about some period of time, somewhere at some time where there was a great a religious ferment going on.

[00:46:53] There was a great artistic ferment. There was a musical ferment. There was a political ferment. [00:47:00] And y- and what this is people getting bubbly, people getting excited. When there’s a lot of, innovation in music, that’s because people who play music are, getting excited about new- about some new ideas or influences.

[00:47:12] And anything in a y- anything in a bubbly or agitated state can be said to be fermenting. And it really goes to the roots of the word fermentation. The, the word fermentation comes from the Latin fervere, which means to boil, and it’s because fermentation has historically been recognized by the bubbles that it creates in liquid.

[00:47:36] And when I’m sh- showing you my sourdough starter, I’m showing you my bubbles. When I’m showing you the mature idli starter, I’m showing you the bubble matrix. That’s the proof that the fermentation is happening. So it just came over time that people started using the word fermentation to describe other bubbly phenomena.

[00:47:57] So people excited about whatever people are [00:48:00] excited about and, it can be, one person with ideas fermenting in their mind, or it’s used more frequently to describe movements, whether it’s political movements, whether it’s artistic or musical movements. But any time a a group of people get caught up in a shared sense of excitement that’s also a a, a fermentation.

[00:48:22] In terms of the events of 2020, certainly this has been a challenging year in in, in all kinds of ways. COVID and physical distancing and not being in gr- big groups of people and, the fact that we’re doing this from our homes over the internet and that the, the Mother Earth News Fairs, which are these big events with thousands of people can’t happen as usual.

[00:48:44] So that- that’s one aspect of 2020. I w- I would think that the, the, the dramatic change to our lives that this has brought is certainly causing people to do lots of, thinking and reflecting about aspects of their life and, what they’re really [00:49:00] missing or maybe what they’re not missing, what they’ve had more room to bring into their lives as a result of these changes.

[00:49:07] In my own life, I can’t believe how much travel I had planned that got that got derailed by this. But, as it turns out, it’s been, in certain ways a gift to have this extended period of time at home. And I have, I’ve had the nicest garden this year that I’ve had in years because I’ve had the time to be here and and tend it.

[00:49:26] I’ve done lots of cooking and playing around in the kitchen. And I’ve also been writing another book. I’ve been writing a travelogue book about from… I have to just keep moving a little bit because of the, the light in my kitchen. And then there’s, and then there’s just all the crazy political developments and, I think that political movements and social change, really are, are expressions of fermentation.

[00:49:51] It’s, it’s people getting, bubbly, people getting passionate about passionate enough about things to get out of their homes and, and [00:50:00] take a some kind of action. Certainly I hope that in, in the US next month we have, unprecedented numbers of people voting and feeling, worked up enough to care about the outcome of of the election.

[00:50:15] And then, beyond the election, I think we have we have all these really important social issues, not to mention climate change. There’s all these, kind of existential threats and, I would say that in 2020, more than ever before, we need, we need the bubbly cre- creativity of fermentation.

[00:50:35] And we need it literally in our bodies and in our homes. We need to become, more connected to the food that we’re eating. But also to to creatively address these existential questions. We need to encourage thinking outside of the box.

[00:50:50] We need to encourage original thinking and willingness to try new and different things. And I think all those things are manifestations of the [00:51:00] metaphorical fermentation.

[00:51:01] Josh Wilder: Yeah, absolutely. I always loved the, the idea of culture as a word, the cultures and fermentation and, what that says about our culture and all the things that go into that and the changes that, that grow out of that I’m really interested in that travel log work- book you’re working on.

[00:51:18] I think that’d be amazing. I’ve- I’ve seen some of the videos you’ve done on- on some of your travels to- to learn about different ferments, and I think that’d be really valuable to talk about some of that. But I- I totally understand if

[00:51:28] Sandor Katz: you’re- we’ll have to wait. I’m still-

[00:51:29] Josh Wilder: Yeah, no, I totally- I’m about

[00:51:31] Sandor Katz: halfway through it.

[00:51:32] Absolutely.

[00:51:32] Josh Wilder: Yeah …

[00:51:32] Sandor Katz: but it- it should be coming out a- around this time of year next year is when- Great … I expect that it will be published.

[00:51:39] Josh Wilder: Great. Great. We have a couple other questions that come up. One interesting one that Lissa says that she’s a- she’s an avid pickler- Now I can

[00:51:46] Sandor Katz: go back to my original position.

[00:51:48] Josh Wilder: Okay. She says she’s an avid pickler, and her mom was a good client, but she recently ha- her mother recently had to take salt out of her diet. Yikes, heart problem. She saw today on your website [00:52:00] that lactic acid fermentation doesn’t need the salty environment and she might have under- misunderstood that.

[00:52:06] Any ideas for fermenting lower to no salt use? And she says, “Thank

[00:52:10] Sandor Katz: you.” Okay. So here’s the thing, is like I- I just wanna say lower is better than no. Most people who get the advice from from a medical professional to moderate their salt intake, they’re not being told to have zero salt.

[00:52:25] And okay, let’s talk about some of the services that salt provides for y- let’s, I- I assume we’re talking about fermenting vegetables so number one, we’re like, we’re trying to get the vegetables submerged under liquid. In the sauerkraut dry salting method, we’re not adding any liquid, but rather we’re trying to pull some juice out of the vegetables to get the vegetables submerged under that juice.

[00:52:51] And so salt, through the process of osmosis, pulls water out of the vegetables. So a little bit of salt as you’re [00:53:00] shredding the vegetables helps draw a liquid out of the vegetables. The other way that salt really contributes to the process is texturally. So in the first place in the short run, salt makes vegetables crispier and crunchier.

[00:53:16] Basically w- with the component of vegetables that makes them crispy and crunchy are pectins and salt hardens the pectins, so it makes them, crisper and crunchier. And then in the long term, like I’m sure lots of people who’ve tried fermented cucumbers have ended up with something, really soft and mushy at the end, and that can happen with cabbages and with daikon radishes as well.

[00:53:41] It can happen with any kind of vegetable given enough time, given high heat. Salt slows down these enzymes that break down the pectins. The, what ma- what breaks down the pectins and makes your ferments get soft and mushy eventually are pectins that are in the vegetables. There’s [00:54:00] nothing you can really do about that.

[00:54:01] When you’re fermenting cucumbers, people put in grape leaves, or sometimes horseradish leaves, or cherry leaves, or, other tannin-rich leaves and that, marginally slows down those enzymes, but it doesn’t stop them. But salt will really slow them down. The, the more salt you add, the more they’ll be slowed down, and if you add no salt, typically it’ll it’ll get soft and mushy very quickly in general, I would say texture is the re- is the biggest reason why you wanna add salt.

[00:54:33] Flavor also. When I’ve eaten the no-salt fermented vegetables I’ve always felt like something was missing. The best totally salt-free sauerkraut I ever had used celery juice. So covered the vegetables with celery juice, and then that took care of part of the problem because, celery is very high in minerals, natural salts.

[00:54:56] While you’re not adding pure sodium chloride you’re [00:55:00] adding a concentration of a vegetable that has a lot of minerals in it and can offer some of the benefits of salt. But I would say that, anyone who, especially anyone who learned from their grandparents who learned from their grandparents, anyone who comes from a family where sauerkraut has been a, a continuous process probably learned to make a very salty sauerkraut because for your grandparents’ grandparents, that was survival food.

[00:55:25] That might be the only vegetables that they would see for six months, and so they had an incentive to add salt because salt is a preservative in its own right. But, if you’re making small batches in your kitchen that’s not for survival through a long, harsh winter, but rather because you enjoy the flavor of sauerkraut, because you want the probiotics, you can use exceedingly small amounts of salt.

[00:55:50] The USDA recommendation for salt is 2 to 5% salt. I find that way too salty. That’s too salty for my preference. And there, there’s [00:56:00] no … salt is not the thing that’s keeping it safe. In, in, in fact, in the United States, for more than 20 years, there was a, a business in California called Rejuvenative Foods that sold a totally salt-free sauerkraut.

[00:56:14] I know of a, a couple of other, small regional businesses around the country that are making totally salt-free sauerkrauts. No problem with safety. The problem is it doesn’t taste very good and it doesn’t have a very nice texture. But but it can be done. But I think a half a percentage of salt, which is a very small amount of salt, you know, gives you a lot of the benefits of salt without wi- without introducing excessive salt in in, in the diet

[00:56:42] Josh Wilder: She follows up saying they, they do talk about almost no salt for liquid retention, which turns out to be t- put too much pressure on the heart pumping.

[00:56:50] Sandor Katz: Okay.

[00:56:51] Then, so try making it without any salt. May- maybe try the, the s- the celery juice hack and see how you like that. I mean it d- it definitely, [00:57:00] can be done

[00:57:02] Josh Wilder: Yeah, she says she’s she works for the Sal De Roda Cooperative, so she’s a fanatic about salt.

[00:57:07] … Saltiest cooking culture in the world are the Italians, and they have the least cardiac problems. Is this a myth? She’s really asking.

[00:57:14] Sandor Katz: I, I don’t know enough to, to-

[00:57:16] Josh Wilder: Yeah …

[00:57:16] Sandor Katz: to answer that question.

[00:57:18] Josh Wilder: There is a question about making pickles from vegetables in the garden from the summer.

[00:57:22] They don’t have the fridge space to keep them for very long. What’s your solution for keeping things longer than a month at a hotter temperature?

[00:57:30] Sandor Katz: It would help if I knew what things were. Are we talking about sauerkraut? So I don’t know, y- I’m not sure exactly what, w- what we’re talking about.

[00:57:40] But what I’ll say is just for storing anything it just depends on on, on temperature. And, the cooler the temperature, the longer you can store most things. Sauerkraut doesn’t require refrigerator temperatures. That’s typically about 38 degrees Fahrenheit.

[00:57:55] The earth temperature, 55 degrees Fahrenheit, is a great temperature for storing [00:58:00] sauerkraut. So if you are someone who is lucky enough to have a- an unheated root cellar that stays more or less the temperature of the earth, you can store fermented vegetables or many fresh vegetables indefinitely at a temperature like that.

[00:58:16] I was in Vermont a few years ago, and a, a farmer who has a a value-added business making sauerkraut, like growing the cabbage and then making sauerkraut out of it you know, he invited me into his cellar, and we tasted some three-year-old sauerkraut that had never been in a refrigerator.

[00:58:32] Had just been in the cellar at earth temperature for three years. And I would I would’ve had no way of knowing if he hadn’t told me that it was three years old. It tasted exactly like a three-month-old sauerkraut would taste like. It was it was fully acidic.

[00:58:47] It was, it was very sharp which I really love. But a, an acidic, salty food at a moderate temperature like the earth’s temperature is stable for a very long time. [00:59:00]

[00:59:00] Josh Wilder: All right. Great. I think that’s all the questions we have. …

[00:59:03] Sandor Katz: Okay. It always gets back to the fermenting

[00:59:05] Josh Wilder: vegetables.

[00:59:08] Yeah. They’re delicious. I can’t I can’t play with this, for sure.

[00:59:11] Sandor Katz: One, one of the things that’s so appealing to me about the theme of teaching people about making dosas and idli is just how simple it is. And and it’s interesting that we got through the agenda and all the questions in less time than, than was allotted because, it’s just like a very straightforward process.

[00:59:30] You soak the lentils, you soak the rice. Usually with the lentils I put a little a, a pinch of fenugreek seeds. Soak them overnight, drain them, put them in a blender with just a little bit of the soaking water, blend them into a smooth batter, ferment them until ferment that batter until it rises.

[00:59:51] It’ll almost double if it just rises 50%, don’t worry, it’s, it it’s rising. That, that’s great. And add a little bit of salt before you cook it, [01:00:00] and then on a pan with with minimal oil. Yeah, and you want the pan to be hot before you put the dosa batter on.

[01:00:06] You don’t wanna put it on like a, a room temperature pan and then heat it up. You wanna put it on a hot pan so you get a sizzle when it hits the pan. And then you cook it until it changes color. A little oil around the edges, flip it over, cook it another a minute or two, and then you’re in business.

[01:00:23] And and enjoy your dosas or idlis or experimenting and doing things like buckwheat bread or acaraje with black-eyed peas or your own creations i- in these themes. Like the, the traditional ferments, give us, like the, the, the formulas that work, but then, we can substitute in whatever, whatever variants of these are are abundant in our lives.

[01:00:49] Try this with, split peas and quinoa. Whatever whatever kinds of greens grains or beans you like. So it’s it’s real simple. Don’t [01:01:00] overcomplicate it. All the organisms you need are on every grain and every bean, and it’s just about using water to harness those and and then using these foods to nourish ourselves and our families and our friends.

[01:01:14] Josh Wilder: Thank you so much, Sandor. I really appreciate it. If anyone wants to check out any of his books, they’re available at the Mother Earth News online bookstore, motherearthnews.com/store. And appreciate your time, Sandor.

[01:01:27] Sandor Katz: All right. Thanks everyone for coming today. Take care.