Sauerkraut

Now that I have my own (almost) flat, it's time to start turning my kitchen into a science experiment. The boyfriend and I kind of have an unspoken understanding that I won't go into the box room/office and he won't go into the kitchen. I literally couldn't sleep last night thinking about all the smelly projects I'll finally be able to embark upon. So lets start with something easy, sauerkraut. This is my dad's recipe and the results are always amazing. All you do is shred a head of white cabbage and a couple of carrots, and then layer them in a clean jar, sprinkle each layer with a teaspoon of salt and kind of scrunch it down with your knuckles, try and compress it as much as possible. The salt and friction with tear the first layer of skin off of your knuckles, which is very cool if you're going to a party later. People will ask you what happened to your hand, and then you can slam your drink down and scream 'Stay away from my man, bitches!' and everyone will want to be friends with you.
Anyway, after the final layer you cover the top of the jar with an unshredded cabbage leaf and figure out a way to weigh the whole thing down somehow, next time I go to the beach I'll look out for a nice big rock. Now, I've seen recipes for this that require you to top the whole thing with water to make sure all of the cabbage is submerged, this is wrong, and the best way to make sure your sauerkraut rots instead of fermenting. If you've used enough force the cabbage should start reacting with the salt immediately and releasing enough liquid to cover it completely. Should look like this. At which point, try and stir in a big spoon of sugar
Leave it for at least a week on your counter, poke it around a bit every day to make sure a bit of oxygen gets to all the layers, and then eat or store in the fridge (if you have a fridge that's big enough to store a jar in. I currently don't).