In this article, we’ll look at extending the shelf-life of food by salting, sugaring, and storing in oil. In the modern kitchen, these techniques alone are not safe for long-term storage. As you will see, they are best used when combined with another food preservation method, such as drying, refrigerating, or freezing.
Sugars and salts work to draw moisture out of the ingredient, making it a less likely environment to host harmful microorganisms. While oil helps prevent oxidation—or deterioration from exposure to the air—and inhibits mold growth.
Food begins to degrade as soon as it is harvested. For this reason, humankind has been using preservation methods since time immemorial. Historically, food preservation evolved based on the food source, culture, and environment, yet the same techniques arose across the globe. If food couldn’t be dried by the sun, it may have been smoked. Freezing would have been limited by the region or season. By preserving, food waste can be reduced.
In Oil
You may remember everything you have bought at the store packed in oil such as sardines, mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, artichokes, or herb-infused oils. There are several reasons these commercial preparations are safe to eat. They are likely to have been pasteurized or had the addition of vinegar or other acidic preservatives. In the home kitchen, when storing low-acid foods in oil, the same care should be taken, or it will only last a few days in the refrigerator before it should be frozen for longer storage.
Garlic Confit
Our plant of the month is garlic, which stores for an extended amount of time (on average 4–6 months) with minimal effort. The key is keeping it cool and dry. You will find mixed advice about whether the fridge is too cold, and that may depend on your climate and available storage space. A root cellar may be too humid and cold for long-term storage.
Curing, or allowing the garlic bulbs to dry before storing is important. What can be agreed upon, is to keep your garlic bulbs out of the sun. And don’t store them in plastic bags, always use paper, cloth, or mesh. If you haven’t removed the leaves from your softneck garlic, the bulbs can be braided together and hung directly. Or lay them flat on cardboard trays.
Let’s take your garlic harvest beyond the usual curing and storing with a recipe for garlic confit. In short, this method is slow-roasting garlic in oil and can be stored safely in the refrigerator for a few weeks. Because of the low acidity level of garlic, it is not recommended to store garlic confit at room temperature, or for longer without canning, to prevent the risk of botulism.
I also like to roast whole heads of garlic in the oven, and then freeze the cloves individually for use in recipes. Next month, I’ll recap and have more tips on freezing ingredients for individual use.
Pesto & Chimichurri
Pesto is another obvious food that relies heavily on oil to keep the basil from discoloring. It can easily be frozen for longer-term use and doesn’t have to be limited to basil. Throw in other leafy, mild greens like spinach, chard, arugula, nasturtium leaves, or carrot tops. Speaking of carrot tops, I like to turn mine into a version of the Argentinian condiment, chimichurri. Both pesto and chimichurri will also be great for featuring your garlic harvest.
Salting
Curing by salting is typically thought of when preserving meats and fish, but it also works with fruits or veggies. Salting is usually used with fermenting to create pickles or brining, which we will cover in another article soon. There are too many great ways to preserve the harvest to contain them all in just one article!
Cured Lemons
Your first thought might not turn to salting fruits. This can be used for other citrus like oranges, grapefruit, limes, and kumquats. For my needs, I preserve one or a part of a lemon and it lasts a long while, several months in the fridge. I like to flavor mine with sumac berries, bay leaves, or peppercorns.
It has probably been ten years since I last preserved a lemon. Back then, I had a Meyer lemon on hand and seemed to remember just packing it in salt and putting it straight in the fridge. This time the recipes I reviewed talked about submerging in lemon juice and placing it on the counter for a few days. Sounds like lacto fermentation to me. So that’s what I’ve done. Time will tell how it turns out. I’ll bring this topic back up in more depth when we talk about pickling and we can check to see how the lemons did then.
Preserved lemons are often used in North African and Middle Eastern recipes. I use them anywhere else I might use salt and lemon: in salad dressings, marinades, or even salsa. Small bits of the rinsed rind could add interesting pops of flavor to a sweet dish like blueberry muffins. The salt and lemon combo can be powerful. Always taste and adjust the seasoning in your recipes to accommodate the citrusy brine.
Sugaring
Jams and jellies are the most common preserves using sugar or honey. We’ll cover these more in-depth when we talk about canning and our figs have ripened.
Sugared Violets
This suggestion to make candied violets is 100% ornamental and just frivolous fun! The domesticated violets you are probably growing in your dome, don’t have the same flavor profile as wild ones. They still make beautiful edible ornaments to decorate cakes, cookies, and desserts.
Egg white or the juice from canned beans is painted onto the violets, sprinkled with sugar, and allowed to dry. I didn’t have canned garbanzos handy, so I used black bean aquafava. I was pleasantly surprised that the dark purple color didn’t obstruct the natural colors of the violets. A thin coating went on pretty clear.
The other challenges I faced were painting on the aquafava and drying. Because the violet petals are so supple it’s difficult to hold them and paint on the bean juice. I found it easiest to paint the aquafava on a small spot of wax paper, lay the violet face down in the puddle, and paint the back.
We have been getting a lot of rain, lately. The humid environment required more time to be allowed for full drying. Voilà, violas!
Crystalized Ginger
We have ginger currently growing in our 22′ Growing Dome. I am looking forward to revisiting crystalizing ginger when we harvest it. According to this recipe, it takes a couple of steps of boiling in water and then in a simple syrup, but the water and simple syrup have their own unique uses. The sugaring at the end is optional.
I keep commercial crystalized ginger on hand for soothing stomach upset, and when I don’t have fresh—in a pinch—I’ll chop it up to flavor fried rice, stir-fry, or marinades.
Spruce Sugar
Spruce sugar falls into the category of wild foraging outside of your Growing Dome and is more about infusing the sugar with the citrus and piney notes from the spruce tips, rather than trying to preserve the tips. I threw it in here because the magnificent, blue spruce is the Colorado state tree, and it’s the time of year in the high country for harvesting spruce tips as I was writing this article—mid-late June.
Spruce Sugar would make a nice crunchy topping on a lemon scone or add to a herby spice rub.
Those are just a few ways that salting, sugaring, and packing in oil can extend the shelf-life of some of the herbs, vegetables, and fruits you may be growing in your garden. When we talk more about pickling or canning jams, you’ll recognize the incorporation of these techniques. Next month, we’ll be looking at freezing the green chile harvest.
