Brad Makes Giardiniera

I'd wear a dress.

All right, Vinny, today on It's Alive,

we're gonna be doing a little giardiniera.

It's a bunch of vegetables chopped up into pieces,

and we're gonna do a little lacto-fermentation,

with some spices and some water.

It's great on sandwiches, traditionally,

but it's also, it's just a wonderful condiment to have

in your fridge.

And it's super easy, so let's get going, Vinny.

(banjo music)

(drum music)

This is a very active fermentation,

so if you have like a big jar with a screw-on lid,

or one that latches, you can do that,

but I'm not kidding, you've got to burp it

like a couple of times a day,

or you're making a giardiniera bomb.

No bueno, it will blow up.

You can either burp all the time, or get one of these.

We've talked about these before.

You can get them on Amazon, or I don't know, Amazon.

For this, we're gonna be doing a 3.5% salt brine.

For this amount of water,

to be 3.5% salt, we need 66 grams of salt.

So, let me get my scale, Vinny.

Oh, who put that there?

I'm gonna add that right to the old fermentation jar.

All right, a little trick I learned right there, boom.

Okay, and then we're gonna add our water.

You know what?

I've got a little bone to pick

with the manufacturer of these things.

There's sometimes ...

Someone really needs to figure that out.

What I like to do is just shake up that salt.

You want to get it dissolved in there, you know?

And then now, we can add our spices, Vinny.

I got some beautiful fresh bay leaves.

You can use dry, that's fine.

I think they add a nice aroma,

and I believe they have some tannins in them,

which help keep vegetables crunchy.

And that's important, because as you're fermenting,

you're technically rotting things,

and eventually they will start to get mushy.

By adding tannins to it will help keep things crunchy.

So we add those, okay?

Same with mustard seeds.

Add flavor, but they also add,

they'll help maintain the crunch.

One teaspoon coriander,

one teaspoon black peppercorns,

Tellicherry,

one teaspoon fennel seed, okay, like so.

All right, check these out.

These are secret weapons here.

And then I got two teaspoons dried oregano.

And that's gonna make, give it that, like,

wow, I'm hanging out on an Italian sub,

you know what I mean, Vinny?

Celery salt, I've got half a teaspoon,

and then some cayenne, same.

A little heat, a little zing.

Celery salt just adds a nice, nice flavor.

And then we have some garlic.

So I'll do a little crush, okay?

A little crush.

Yeah when you crush it too, it's nice,

'cause you form that allicin, that's that good stuff.

You can use a little less if you don't like garlic,

you know, if you're not a huge fan of garlic,

stop watching the show,

but you can also just use one.

We're all wrong sometimes, right Vinny?

All right, cool.

For my next trick, Vinny, I've got some green beans here.

So we don't have to be crazy.

We're just gonna cut them into pieces, you know?

Something like that, something manageable

something you could put in a bowl of rice.

Bite-sized, small, bite-sized pieces.

You can go a little smaller too if you're into that,

or you can go larger, you know,

that's what I like about this.

There ain't no rules.

So the green beans, okay, they go right in the water.

Right in there, bud.

We're gonna add a little onion.

Yellow onion.

You can use red, you can use shallots,

you can use whatever you want.

But I like to just cut into, like, little petals.

Little chunks, you know?

My new favorite knife here, I found it in the ...

Mr. Knowlton, I could feel him staring at me

right through my back.

Like Medusa.

What are you doing for It's Alive, Brad?

We're making a little giardiniera.

Gonna take that, okay my God, look at that snow!

It's like a whiteout out there, Vinny!

[Woman] Crazy!

[Brad] Oh, a state of emergency, close the subways!

That's the problem with these kids today.

Next we've got a little leek, Vinny.

And we'll do, we'll cut 'em in like that.

Got a little cauliflower.

I like to cut out the stem a little.

Save that, though, you can just chop that up.

And then I just like to break little pieces, you know?

Oh, yeah, that's the stuff.

Look at these little,

what do they call 'em, Vinny, florets?

As you start to make these things,

and, like, oh, I really like the cauliflower in it,

you can add more cauliflower than say green beans

or anything, you know what I mean?

You make your own ratios.

All right, we're gonna take a little red pepper,

a little red bell.

Little red bell.

It looks like we're making, you know,

when you're a young lad, Vinny,

and you go to like the State Fair,

and they give you a little coke bottle,

and you make the little layered sand art?

Little giardiniera art.

Little celery, chop that up.

These are like the inside leaves,

but if you get a nice beautiful head of celery,

you get the nice outside leaves, which are real green.

I had trouble finding some nice ones.

As you can tell, it's not peak growing season right now.

Yeah, that's the stuff, Vinny, right in there bud,

join the party.

All right, next we've got some carrots.

I'm gonna nip off the ends and the little tips.

You can keep 'em if you want, you know,

and feed 'em to your rabbit, whatever you've got.

And then these I just chop up into little coins.

(speaks in foreign language)

All right and now we're back to the garlic.

It's been sitting for about 10 minutes,

nice and allicified.

Give that a little rough chop, right in she goes.

I've got to warn you, when you're fermenting this,

it is a very, it's very active,

but it's also very fragrant.

Tastes way better than it smells.

Little Fresno peppers.

You can use anything, jalapeno adds a little spice,

if you're looking for some real spiciness,

a little habanero.

Habaneros are nice, because they add a nice little

floral fun-quoi to it.

Okay, and that's kind of it.

I'm gonna give it another little shaky-shake.

Oh, yeah.

Look at that, huh?

It's a beautiful thing, Vinny.

All right, got my little tamp out.

Cut that.

Just put that stuff down a little bit.

It's not really doing anything.

Here, I'll address something.

So when you are fermenting,

you want everything to be submerged under the brine

that you created.

So that's where these little fermentation weights

come in great.

All right, boom, that's it!

We've got our little top here.

As we're fermenting, we're producing gases.

That gas needs to go out, otherwise it will blow up.

So this is a little one way valve.

We're gonna fill it up to here with water,

and that stops anything,

so the gas bubbles out, and no oxygen can get in.

Good job, max fill.

We'll follow that.

I'm gonna go grab a pice of tape, Vinny,

then we'll label this, okay?

What's today, I don't have my watch.

What's the date today, the sixth?

The seventh, okay.

And then like the seventh,

so today's a Wednesday,

we're gonna check back on this, say,

Frid, ah, Monday, Monday morning, Vinny.

You know, if it's really warm out,

then might do a little less time.

So fermentation really is a product of its environment.

(laughing)

We should do that again, we're drifting.

Let's bring this over here, Vinny.

Now, lots of bubbles still in there, too.

(speaking foreign language)

So, remove the old airlock.

Now look, you can see

that there's a bunch of head space in there,

and the bottom of the lid,

that's how active this was.

Especially over the weekend,

it gets a little warmer in here,

that thing must have just been bubbling,

taking of like crazy.

Now all that liquid is good stuff,

you don't want to go throwing that away, either.

Beautiful.

Wish you guys could smell it,

but you really, that oregano comes through, the garlic,

you get sweet notes kind of from the vegetables,

it's just really cool stuff.

So it's done fermenting,

now what we're gonna do

is I got about 3.5 tablespoons of sugar,

regular old sugar, I'm just gonna dump that right in there.

So now, I'm gonna add a quarter cup of vinegar,

just distilled white vinegar,

just to help pop it, you know?

Just to keep it a little bright.

Add that right in, all right?

And then let me get a lid real quick, Vinny.

It always freaks me out when I go stick my hand in here,

this crock that I got.

I mean, I know there's nothing in it,

but like, it's just a dark hole,

you go sticking your hand in there, you know?

Hopefully one day we'll go noodling, Vinny.

Yeah, beautiful stuff.

So I bought a bunch of these jars,

these little giardiniera jars, as I'm gonna call them.

And we're going to go ahead and load these up.

Oh, yeah, look at that, beautiful stuff.

Then we'll just do a little top with some liquid there.

All right, jar number one.

I got a little bit of just the juice left in here.

I'm gonna strain it into this jar,

just to get rid of,

there's a lot of spices and seeds in there

that just aren't necessary for

what I want to eventually use this for.

Little bit so spillage, no big deal.

So we've got 'em all packed up,

got a little bit of extra brine,

and that you can add to other fermentations.

Just add a little life to it.

Oh wait, maybe,

you might not want to add that.

I've done this with other lacto-fermentations,

the fact that I added vinegar,

I'm not sure if it is beneficial to add as a starter.

Anyway, keep this, this is great,

you can use this brine for, you know,

you can put it in vinagrettes,

you can use it for marinade, good stuff.

It's beautiful, it's tasty, don't throw it away.

Then we've got our giardiniera jarred up here,

and we'll store that in the fridge.

And that can last for, you know, at least a couple of weeks.

I got a little piece of that cauliflower and the carrot.

Oh yeah, still got big crunch.

You can taste the oregano, taste the garlic,

it's got a little bit of that lactic funk,

which is really nice.

I mean classically, you chop it up,

you can put it on a sandwich.

It'd be great on rice, it'd be great on just about anything.

You can put it on eggs, you know,

put it on almost anything.

Well, what I'm gonna do,

I went and picked up a couple of sandwiches,

and we're gonna chop some up and just add it to it.

See what you got here, mystery sando.

Okay, okay, all right.

So yeah, just a little store-bought sandwich,

with arugula and red roasted peppers.

I know we said no waste or anything,

but we're gonna scrape this off.

Oh, it's gutted.

For God sakes, they gutted the bread.

Freaking gutted bread.

Look at that, what, are we making boats?

Well that's okay, you got a so-so sandwich,

and I can really jazz that up.

Put a little giardiniera on it.

So, oh God.

You could throw this right in that moat there

if you wanted to.

But I'm gonna chop it up a little.

I think it eats a little easier, especially on a sandwich.

So I'm gonna take that, oh, it looks good already.

You can mix that up in some mayonnaise,

add a little bit of mustard if you want,

make your own little condiment, that would be really cool.

But here we're just gonna drop it right in there,

look at that, like a little muffaletta,

muffaletta, however you pronounce that.

All right, and we'll leave the arugula, that's fine.

We're just gonna go ahead and flop that right over.

All right, Vinny, we'll call it lunch, bud.

Look at that, huh?

The sandwich just go way better.

Mm hmm.

Oh it needed that.

It adds crunch, big flavor, it's easy, super cheap to make,

you can basically make it out of scraps in your kitchen.

Someone shows up with some mediocre sandwiches,

from a mediocre deli,

throw a little giardiniera on there,

home run, baby, look at it go. (laughing)

Oh! Nice.

Yeah man, that acid-- It's nice.

It makes everything better.

It cuts the fat.

It kind of just brings everything out.

You can put that on anything.

Give me a little more.

Yeah!

(celestial music)

Thanks, Delany.

All right, that's it, giardiniera.

Keep it in the fridge, you've got a couple of weeks,

no big deal.

Add it to whatever you want,

eat it right out of the jar,

it's delicious, it's giardiniera.

Make it, ferment it, bon appetit.

Hey, Andy? What's up?

Wanna try a little piece?

Yeah, I've heard it all now.

All right fine, that's a good excuse.

Good enough, Andy, good enough.

Oh, slippery, oh you ain't kidding.

Oh, did you get that, Vinny?

I swear she's doing it on purpose!

Molly's having a hard time.

She did it twice.

No, this is gold.

They closed the schools, it's not even snowing yet.

In New Jersey they did.

(laughing) Might as well be Pennsylvania.

All right, here we go.

(upbeat music)