Hello everyone, Anastasia from Happy Bellyfish is here
today are going to cook my most favourite dish - 
sauerkraut! But a little bit with a twist
because we are not going to use
salt for this
sauerkraut is one of the oldest fermented foods
which actually
comes from Central and Eastern Europe
and I'm from there and my granny always
taught me that if I eat a lot of
sauerkraut I will always be healthy
it's a wonderful source of probiotics, so if
for some reason you decided not to eat
yoghurt than sauerkraut will be a
great food to include into your diet
some people have problems with salt and
just to make it low sodium we'll do it
a very traditional way and we'll let
cabbage to ferment on its own without
any help of harmful ingredients
to make this magical dish you only need four
ingredients
one very good cabbage
some carrots
cumin
and the secret ingredient,
probably came under Srikant's influence
this is the ingredient that saves cabbage from
rotting without adding salt - its chilli pepper
first we should remove just a few
cabbage leaves from top
but on't throw them away
we just need to put them aside and
I will show you later what we will use
them for
then we just cut the cabbage the way we
like it
it's probably smarter to use the food
processor though
- This is not an easy job, let me call Srikant!
- So just when he thought that was it ...
Please!
if you are adding carrots to the sauerkraut
then the best way to do it is
actually to grate it, you can also cut it
in tiny pieces or very thin stripes,
it's up to you! But I prefer to do it this
way because I think it blends the best
with the rest of the flavours
now comes the crucial part of sauerkraut - 
you have to mix it and there is no other
way other than to do it with hands, because
you have to mix it and you have to press it
it's a bit of a messy job but that's
okay we can clean afterwards!
So, you mix - the idea is that it lets its juices out
when the carrots are mixed with the
cabbage, comes the time to finally add the spices!
we will start with the chilli
powder, I'm using half a spoon here
trust me it will not make your sauerkraut
hot at all and after this
we'll add some cumin
here I'm adding three teaspoons of
cumin but for some people it might be
actually a little bit too much so I
would say at least 1 1/2 spoons
and then you can increase the quantity
according to your taste
you have to keep mixing and pressing it
to let the juice
come out and also your spices to mix
evenly together with the cabbage and the
carrot
sauerkraut is great for your guts great
for your skin
and especially if you live in a cold
country where fresh organic oranges are
not available all year round and you can
have some troubles with fresh chilies
this is your source number one for
vitamin C
the last ingredient to add to our sauerkraut is water
just take your filtered water and pour
it on top of sauerkraut not too much
just now that it's about to be covered
with water completely press it a little
bit, see that there is also enough juice
which came out of sauerkraut and start
covering with the leaves that we set aside before
put all the leaves on top and
put a plate on top of the leaves and press it
and the main secret for the great
sauerkraut is actually a press, you need to
put something very heavy on top. I have a
spice grinder,
thanks to Srikant, it can be just a
bottle of water or whatever heavy you
have in the house!
Now you need to wait
about five to seven days if you use the
normal water, if you didn't use the juice
from sauerkraut, because if you use the
juice then it happens much faster, two or
three days, but now five to seven days
and it will be ready, and then you can
transfer it to the fridge
Enjoy your healthy sauerkraut!
you know, in the family we often joke, that if not for Srikant
I would die of starvation!
You get to see it in action! Now I think he can cook every single Russian dish
- Yeah, shopped vegetables ....
- Yes, this is what we eat in Russia!
