Are you tired of choking down salads sprinkled with dirt and tree bark bits for dinner?
Get on this Cornerman secret swag sauce recipe that’ll have your salad or some of those spiralized zucchini noodles tasting like Gordon Ramsay dropped in to make you dinner.
Cornerman’s Tip #1: Culturing Veggies At first, the culturing (or fermentation) process can seem a little daunting. Don’t be intimidated! I’ve been culturing for over 15 years and haven’t had a bad batch. There are some easy things you can do to ensure you get fine ferments. One of the easiest ways to prevent cultured food from going bad is to be sure that the brine (liquid juices) covers all the fibers of the vegetables or herbs or whatever it is that you decide to culture (see pic below). Although I’ve never used them, you can get fermentation weights to help keep the fibers below the brine. Just pack the fibers down with a spoon or tamper to get rid of air pockets and you will be good.
So much flava flav
Along with all their nutritional benefits, cultured foods add gobs of flavor that is uniquely unattainable from anything else in your kitchen.
One reason why cultured foods add so much flavor to your foods is that they contain acid produced from the bacteria. The acid tenderizes the food by breaking down fibers. As it tenderizes, all those secret swag sauce flavors penetrate the food.
Combine your cultured vegetables or juices from your cultured veggies with fat and you enter the big leagues!
Cornerman’s Tip #2: Salad Dressing/Marinade Game
Making a salad dressing?
- use a 2:1 ratio of fat to acid – if the fat you want to use is solid (like coconut oil) melt it in a pan first then incorporate it into the acid.
Need a marinade for your grilled portabellos?
- use a 1:1 ratio for marinades – let food marinade a minimum of 30 minutes to 2 hours. If you’re grilling one of AZ Grass Raised Beef ribeyes, bathe it in the swag juices for 12 hours.
The First Cornerman Secret Swag Sauce:
Cultured Lemon Basil Garlic Paste
Here’s what you’ll need to snag!
Ingredients:
- 6 cups of fresh organic basil (about 2- 4 oz tubs)
- 2 cloves of organic garlic
- ½ teaspoon of sea salt
- 1-2 organic lemons, fresh squeezed
Want the full recipe? Click here.
Cornerman’s Tip #3: A Little Garlic Goes a Long Way
If you love garlic like me, you’ll be tempted to add 17 more cloves of garlic to the recipe. Fight the temptation, my garlic-loving friends! A little garlic goes a long way when it’s cultured. I learned the hard way when I first started culturing. I was dripping garlic oil from my pores for at least 3 months!
Cornerman’s Tip #4: One-Stop-Shopping
You can one-stop-shop all the ingredients for this secret swag sauce at Natural Grocers. The other more crunchy grocery stores, Whole Foods and Sprouts, only have huge bushel bags of organic lemons. Hit up Natural Grocers for your all your ingredients, including lemons, to make this secret swag sauce.
Cornerman’s Tip #5: Brown Thumb Gardening
There’s something special about going into your backyard to gather food for your meal. Get on Gordon’s level of cooking and food prep by growing your own herbs. I started growing herbs in a small planter that I picked up a Lowe’s and it’s taking my cooking experience to a whole new level. It’s hasn’t been a month and look at how happy they are! They’re stoked about their new home!
5 Actionable Steps for a Twofer: Kitchen Swag and Gut Health
1. Baby steps. If it’s your first time making cultured veggies, make a small batch like in the recipe above.
2. Green thumb it. Start growing your own herbs in your backyard. Basil, thyme, rosemary, and oregano are simple to grow.
3. Gut bugs? If you have gut issues like candida or SIBO, pay particular attention things like digestion, poop, and your skin that may indicate you’re not ready for cultured foods yet. Remember “3 and 4, we adore”?
4. If you’re good with #3, one of the best ways to get in probiotics is cultured vegetables. The good guys (bacteria) produce enzymes as well as antibiotic and anticarcinogenic substances. If you’re unsure how you’ll respond to them, start by consuming a small spoonful at the beginning of your meal.
5. Get your kitchen swag crackin’! Master chefs like our boy Gordon combine fats (coconut oil or animal fat) and acids (found in cultured vegetables, wine, vinegar) to create swag drippin’ grub–and you can too! Start playing and watch your kitchen swag come unglued!
Have an awesome weekend!
Your Cornerman with love,
Dr. Thoma
