Pickled Mustard Greens Chinese Style (2009-05-06)
I'm not a big fan of Japanese pickled vegetables although I'll eat them if they come with a meal. Of all the pickled veggies here, takanatsuke高 菜漬け is the one I truly enjoy eating. (Takana is a type of mustard green that tastes just like the Chinese Gai Choi 介菜)
Pickling vegetables at home is not difficult but I don't do it
simply because they are so widely available in stores and I don't have
a garden that yields a glut of vegetables that I can't finish eating
them fresh. HOWEVER there's this particular kind of pickled
takana called "salty sour vegetables" that I'll make at home because
you can't find it in Japan.
My mother used to make a dish using pickled takana with fish and
it's so very good. Nowadays I make the same dish and I also
stirfry chopped takana with minced pork, garlic and chili to make a
topping for noodles or rice, it's one of my favorite fast food meals at
home.
The steps in making pickled takana is really simple: drying,
weighing the vegetables, and pickling. Japanese pickle takana in
water, soy sauce, mirin and sugar while the Chinese way of pickling
uses water, vinegar and sugar (hence the sour flavor). The
ratio of vinegar to sugar is not a hard and fast rule, you can
certainly alter the amount according to your taste.
Ingredients: A bunch of takana or Chinese Gai Choi (no
substitutes), for the
pickling liquid: 1000ml water, 200 ml rice wine vinegar, salt 2tsp, any
type of sugar 4-5Tsp
Steps
- Wash the takana to get rid of all the dirt and grit. Separate the leaves, pat dry and lay them out on a rack or colander to further dry them.
- Sprinkle salt liberally on the leaves for 12 hours or so to soften and wilt them.
- Shake off excess salt and squeeze out any liquid accumulated on the leaves.
- Weigh something heavy on the leaves for another 12 hours or more to extract even more liduid from them.
- Boil the water, salt, sugar and vinegar till sugar is just dissolved and turn off heat (if you let it boil too much, the vinegar will lose its pungency and sourness). Taste and adjust the sweetness or sourness if needed. Let the liquid cool completely.
- Soak the takana in the pickling liquid for a full 24 hours.
- Squeeze out excess pickling liquid and they are ready to be eaten.
- Store uneaten portions in the freezer.
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