Thanks Microbes! My Year of Fermented Foods

Every two weeks, I grow a new batch of yogurt, pouring warm milk into my “incubator” and 10 hours later, scooping out the thickened concoction that becomes my yogurt and granola breakfast. In the fridge, sits a small jar of sourdough starter, lying dormant until I revive it again with some flour and water.

As a former bench microbiologist, I am thankful to be able to take my experiments into the kitchen, dabbling in experiments with kefir, kombucha, sourdough, and yogurt. Below, you’ll find some of the recipes I’ve delighted in as I take you around my microbial foods table.

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Thanks microbes for my yogurt breakfasts

First up on the microbial table is yogurt. I started making yogurt years ago with a yogurt maker, but have switched to the Instant Pot (my recipe aka protocol coming soon!) to be able to scale up production. Unlike the kefir I’ve made in the past, I’ve found yogurt easier and gave me consistent results because of the controlled incubation temperature (versus fluctuations in room temperature for kefir). My mornings have been primarily powered by yogurt, raw oats, dried fruit, and seeds all this year. Thanks yogurt for all my breakfasts! 

Learn more about yogurt microbes and how to make yogurt in the Instant Pot here!

Sourdough focaccia and other goodies

My sourdough starter originated from another microbiologist in 2019. So far I’ve managed to keep it alive and uncontaminated. My favorite recipe to make is sourdough focaccia. For a regular sourdough loaf, I’ve enjoyed the country loaf recipe from the beginning of the Tartine Bread book. This sourdough starter has also given me numerous pancakes and waffles. What better way than to wake up in the morning to see that your sourdough starter fed the night before has become a bubbling being full of breakfast potential.

When I bought a pound of yeast

Pizza has become a pandemic staple in our home. Since yeast was hard to find early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, I ended up buying a one pound package of yeast because that was all it could find. Thus began weekly pizza making! Though this frequency has slowed into 2021, I was able to find a new recipe that has worked perfectly each time: The Perfect Loaf’s sourdough pizza dough recipe, For a non-sourdough version, I’ve been making the Smitten Kitchen pizza dough recipe since my grad school days. Another microbial bonus from pizza? Cheese.

Long term goal: use up #OnePoundOfYeast in the next two years.

Bake one: mushroom pizza. pic.twitter.com/EVvuQ3fi2S

— Dr. Jennifer Tsang (@jw_tsang) June 27, 2020

PS:, If you’re curious, I have 10.5 ounces of the yeast left.

Five pounds of chocolate chips

First off, I love that chocolate is a fermented food. And, in true pandemic hoarding fashion, I acquired a five pound bag of mini chocolate chips earlier this year (thanks Addgene). Initially, I couldn’t even fit all the chocolate in the largest glass jar I have. I can’t recall all the chocolate chip recipes I’ve made but these pumpkin banana chocolate chip muffins definitely stood out.

Red wine cranberry sauce

For the last highlight, I’ll leave you with my favorite cranberry sauce recipe: cranberry sauce in pinot noir from Epicurious. What the recipe name doesn’t tell you are the other flavors: ginger, curry, and five spice. I’ve been making this one off and on for the last decade, with slight tweaks each time. It’s definitely a unique flavor that adds a new twist to cranberry sauce.

While most of these foods won’t make their way onto my Thanksgiving spread this year, I’ll always be grateful for the microbial helpers that transform milk into yogurt, flour into bread, and grapes into wine.