AI-generated image
Şalgam
Fermented purple carrot drink
Şalgam suyu: Adana's tangy fermented purple-carrot drink, served icy with kebab
Order an Adana kebab in its home city and a tall glass of şalgam arrives with it, deep purple, salty, sour and often fiery. It is made by fermenting black carrots with a little bulgur and salt for a week or more, and the sharpness clears the palate between bites of lamb and grilled onion. Street carts in Adana sell it by the glass in summer. This home version skips the separate bulgur-sour-dough stage the big producers use. Use non-iodised salt: iodised salt can stall the ferment. Chef's tip: taste from day 5; when it is sour enough to make you blink, strain and chill it, because it keeps fermenting at room temperature.
- Total time
- 20 min
- Difficulty
- easy
- Serves
- 8
Ingredients
- 1 ⅓ lb black (purple) carrotsscrubbed and cut into sticks; or half purple carrots and half beetroot
- 1 small turnippeeled and quartered
- 2 tbsp fine bulgurtied in a square of muslin
- 1 ⅜ oz non-iodised sea salt
- 8 ¼ cups filtered water
- 1 dried hot red chilli (optional)for the acılı (spicy) version
Shop this recipe on Amazon
Links open Amazon in a new tab. As an Amazon Associate, WhatToEat.Today earns from qualifying purchases.
Method
0/4 doneStep 1: Stir 1 ⅜ oz non-iodised sea salt into 8 ¼ cups filtered water until dissolved.
Step 2: Pack 1 ⅓ lb black (purple) carrots, 1 small turnip, the bag of 2 tbsp fine bulgur and 1 dried hot red chilli if using into a clean 3-litre jar. Pour the brine over so everything is covered, weighing the carrots down with a small plate or a zip bag of brine.
Step 3: Cover loosely and leave somewhere cool and dark for 7–10 days, skimming any white film every couple of days. It is ready when it is cloudy, purple-red and pleasantly sour.
0 minStep 4: Strain into bottles and refrigerate; it keeps for 3 weeks. Serve very cold, with a stick of the pickled carrot in each glass.
Nutrition per serving
- Calories
- 15 kcal
- Protein
- 0 g
- Carbs
- 3 g
- Fat
- 0 g
- Fibre
- 1 g
Nutrition values are estimates.
KrazyBadal
Good to know
- How long does şalgam take?
- About 20 minutes in total.
- How many people does it serve?
- 8 as written. Change the servings above the ingredients and every amount scales to match.
- Is it vegan?
- Yes. It has no meat, fish, dairy or eggs.
- Can I make it ahead?
- Yes. It keeps well, so you can cook it earlier in the day or the day before and reheat it.
Reviews
No reviews yet. Be the first to cook it.
Rate this recipe
Sign in to rate and review this recipe.
You might also like
Power packApple, pear, kiwi and celery juice
A sweet, energising juice of apples, pears and kiwi fruit with a stick of celery, all used unpeeled for extra goodness. It's naturally sweet, so it needs no sugar. Serve well chilled.
Guava delightGuava, mango and banana drink
A thick, fragrant blend of ripe guava, mango and banana, boosted with a spoonful of guava powder from the health shop. The book calls it a modern-day vitality drink, drawing on guava's long use in traditional Indian medicine. Serve it well chilled; sieve it if you don't like the little guava seeds.
PingadoHot milk with coffee
Order 'um pingado' at the balcão of any São Paulo padaria at 7 in the morning and the attendant pours hot milk into a ridged glass tumbler (the copo americano) and 'drips' in a splash of strong coffee, hence the name. It is milkier and gentler than a média (half coffee, half milk), creamy and lightly sweet, usually drunk standing up with a pão na chapa, a toasted buttered roll. At home you need strong filter coffee and milk heated until steaming. Scalding the milk is the frequent mistake, as boiled milk tastes flat and forms a skin. Chef's tip: froth the hot milk for a few seconds with a whisk or by pouring it back and forth between two jugs before adding the coffee, as padaria machines do.
Brazilian