Sichuan Pickled veggies
I've posted before my recipe for chow fun with pickled veggies and I think I whined about how hard getting anything other than pickled mustard greens locally (mainly we have Cantonese and Hebei Chinese here). Well, while in China, something I said made Ceci determined for me to understand the difference betwe
en Hunan (her home) and Sichuan cuisine. Sichuan is apparently the place where Chinese cooking is most codified, kinda like France with better food and nicer people (I can say that... look at the last name). After the last meal in Beijing driving the point home, I decided to invest in a Sichuan cookbook. Happily, this one has instructions on how to make all sorts of pao ci. So this morning, I dug out an old pickle jar I used for jows, cleaned it good, and started these beasties. With any luck, we can make chow fun next weekend before I head to Shelton.
2.25 cups water*
1/4 cup sea salt
4 dried chilies
1/2 teaspoon hua jiao**
2 teaspoons strong rice wine***
1 star anise
1 teaspoon ground licorice root
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 piece of fresh ginger
1 cinnamon stick
Heat the water until the salt is all dissolved. Cool to room temperature and add to the pickle jar with the rest of the spices.
Add various root and hard veggies. In this case, we had:
radishes
green beans
Some sort of chili pepper we had in the frig
young ginger
carrots
I had planned at the end of the week to slice white cabbage, cucumber, and red peppers a day before I plan to cook them as they are said to get too salty. However, there was some space left so I stuck the peppers in. Mustard greens I can get canned. I think we have about 5 cans. (We really like chow fun.)
* Another recipe is pretty much the same but adds a 1/2 rice vinegar. Probably a good idea as warm as we get.
**we call them Sichuan peppercorns but they aren't really so let's use the Chinese name.
*** finally something to do with the Uighur booze. Such a pretty bottle for nuclear waste.
And now we wait. Hopefully fermentation will have started by tomorrow morning because the brine smells great.
UPDATE: Well, the softer stuff like the peppers is already dang tasty. The radish are tinting everything pink too.
UPDATE 2: A week later - yum!
en Hunan (her home) and Sichuan cuisine. Sichuan is apparently the place where Chinese cooking is most codified, kinda like France with better food and nicer people (I can say that... look at the last name). After the last meal in Beijing driving the point home, I decided to invest in a Sichuan cookbook. Happily, this one has instructions on how to make all sorts of pao ci. So this morning, I dug out an old pickle jar I used for jows, cleaned it good, and started these beasties. With any luck, we can make chow fun next weekend before I head to Shelton.2.25 cups water*
1/4 cup sea salt
4 dried chilies
1/2 teaspoon hua jiao**
2 teaspoons strong rice wine***
1 star anise
1 teaspoon ground licorice root
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 piece of fresh ginger
1 cinnamon stick
Heat the water until the salt is all dissolved. Cool to room temperature and add to the pickle jar with the rest of the spices.
Add various root and hard veggies. In this case, we had:
radishes
green beans
Some sort of chili pepper we had in the frig
young ginger
carrots
I had planned at the end of the week to slice white cabbage, cucumber, and red peppers a day before I plan to cook them as they are said to get too salty. However, there was some space left so I stuck the peppers in. Mustard greens I can get canned. I think we have about 5 cans. (We really like chow fun.)
* Another recipe is pretty much the same but adds a 1/2 rice vinegar. Probably a good idea as warm as we get.
**we call them Sichuan peppercorns but they aren't really so let's use the Chinese name.
*** finally something to do with the Uighur booze. Such a pretty bottle for nuclear waste.
And now we wait. Hopefully fermentation will have started by tomorrow morning because the brine smells great.
UPDATE: Well, the softer stuff like the peppers is already dang tasty. The radish are tinting everything pink too.
UPDATE 2: A week later - yum!
Comments