The perfection of crunch

Jackson Street in San Francisco's Chinatown used to have a little hole-in-the-wall call the Star Cafe.  

It was my kind of place. Star Cafe was only wide enough to squeeze in the semblance of a kitchen in on the right, run a counter down the middle, and stuff a couple of worn tables and chairs in the back.

The toilet was a creaky affair in the far corner that didn't invite anyone to sit and read the paper, and it was obviously treasured more as a place to stash wet mops, extra to-go boxes, and extra chairs than it was as a restroom.

But what this little dive lacked in refinement, it more than made up for in flavor and price. These folks really were from Shanghai, they cooked what they knew, and we would usually stroll out of there completely stuffed for under ten bucks. Not many places in The City have that type of reputation.

What I really loved there were its Shanghai-style mustard pickles. A huge glass jar of them would be perched in their old cooler, the pickles kept crisp and cold, just the way I wanted them. We'd order a bowl of them to munch on while we perused the menu, and I'd usually commandeer the lion's portion of the pickles before washing them down with a glass of cold, sweetened soybean milk that was also homemade. 

Fresh pickles are amazing

One day when we tromped over there for another meal, we found the doors locked and a sign on them saying the owners were away on a trip to China. That trip turned into years while the storefront stayed empty, and I longed in vain for my pickles, as no one else I knew ever offered them. 

Then, one fine day I ran across a recipe for Mustard Stems Pickled in Sweet Rice Vinegar in the wonderful Bruce Cost book Asian Ingredients. With a little tweaking, his pickles soon turned into the ones in my dreams.

This recipe calls for a Chinese vegetable called - depending upon the grocery store - gay choy, jiecai, or Chinese mustard cabbage. It's a slightly bitter vegetable that's great in a stir-fry with nothing else but lots of ginger and a healthy sprinkling of kosher salt. But it's in this pickle that this variety of mustard greens really shines. 

That gentle mustardy fragrance and flavor poke their way out from the sweet brine and spices, and they are strong enough to stand up to some brutal treatment, like being salted and having boiling vinegar poured over them. Make up a batch and store it in the refrigerator. If you like sausages, try stir-frying them with sliced onions and this pickle for a piquant and utterly divine dish.


Shanghai mustard pickles 
Tángcù jiècài  糖醋芥菜
Shanghai cuisine

It really does smell mustardy

Makes about 1 quart

5 medium heads of Chinese mustard cabbage
2 tablespoons sea salt
3 cups | 750 ml pale rice vinegar
2¼ cups | 500 g sugar
2 tablespoons sea salt
8 dried Thai chiles
5 cloves garlic, crushed
10 thin slices of ginger
Boiling water, as needed

1. Trim off any flimsy leaves from the mustard cabbage and reserve them for some other use. Cut the stems into approximately 3-inch | 8-cm lengths and then cut each length into pieces no more than ½ inch | 1 cm inch wide. (If the heads are starting to flower, use the cores and flowers, too, if they are tender.) Rinse the mustard cabbage carefully, shake dry, and place it in a colander. Sprinkle the salt over the vegetables, lightly rub the salt in, and let them sit for an hour or so to remove most of the excess water.

2. Clean a quart-sized glass jar and lid, making sure that there's no oil or soap residue in there, as this could cause the pickles to mold. Rinse the jar and lid with boiling water and turn them upside-down to drain.

3. Bring the vinegar to a boil in a medium saucepan along with the peppers, garlic, and ginger; let the brine simmer for a few minutes. Shake the excess salt and water off of the mustard cabbage and place it in the glass jar. Pour the boiling brine over the vegetables and toss them lightly; add a bit of boiling water so that it almost reaches the top of the vegetables. Stir the vegetables every 5 minutes or so as they cool so that all of them turn from an emerald green to an olive shade. As they turn color, they'll shrink, and the brine should soon cover the vegetables. Add a bit more water as needed to keep the vegetables submerged.

4. When the jar is cool, refrigerate it for at least two days. Use a very clean pair of chopsticks or fork to remove the pickles. They'll last at least a month if kept clean and cold.

Illustration from ALL UNDER HEAVEN (McSweeney's + Ten Speed, 2016)

Copyright 2016, Carolyn Phillips

Homemade Taiwanese mustard pickles

Home fermentation is way easier than it sounds. All you really need is a pickling crock and a weight to press things down nicely inside the crock, and you’re halfway home. 

A digital scale is also very helpful, if you have access to one of those, since it makes measuring things that much easier. But really, other than that, you just require sea salt, fresh vegetables, clean water, and time.

Make sure everything is squeaky clean, as the number one reason for pickles going south is that somewhere along the line contamination sneaked in. 

Check out this recipe for traditional Sichuan pickles on how to set up a pickle crock, where to get one, what they look like, and all that good stuff. 

Split open the cleaned heads

My secret to success is that I scrub the utensils and douse them with boiling water. My hands are washed thoroughly before I mess around with the pickles, and I ensure that the veggies completely air dry before they are salted. Plus, I like to add a small splash of white liquor to add flavor and a sort of bacterial Band-Aid.

I’m rewarded with pickles that taste the way they used to. Nowadays everything is made in such huge batches and then packaged for goodness knows how long. You really don’t know what is in that pickle, or how much and what kind of preservatives got used. With homemade, it’s all very simple and very natural.

In order to get a pretty yellow tinge, I've added fresh turmeric, about a finger or two will do it per batch. The amount doesn't really matter, as you won't taste it. And it is optional, in case you don't have access to it. Once the pickles are done, you can either remove the turmeric or keep it in.

Dry under the sun for a couple of days

The good news is that these pickles taste truly wonderful. They are not too sour, but rather gently tart and nicely flavorful. Unlike commercially made ones, you don't need to rinse off the extra salt or overpowering sourness. Instead, just pluck them out of the brine and slice away. They are even tasty raw!

The traditional way to use them in Taiwan is to stir-fry the pickles with dried chiles. Any way you cut them, though, these are delicious, with the tangy heat of mustard and the exceptional crunch of very happy vegetables.

Wilted mustard heads

Taiwanese mustard pickles

Táiwān suāncài 台灣酸菜

Taiwan cuisine

Makes as much as you want

Fresh head mustard

Coarse sea salt

Filtered water, boiled and cooled

Fresh turmeric, thinly sliced, optional

Gaoliang or gin

1. Start this recipe at least 3 weeks before you plan to serve it. If you have a digital scale, your job will be much easier, as the math will be that much easier to work with. Choose a sunny day to start this, as the mustard has to be sun-dried for 24 to 48 hours. Have a couple of clean flat baskets ready, or else cover your baking sheets with very clean tea towels.

Rub with salt

2. Weigh your mustard and write this down. Don’t throw that piece of paper away, since the remaining ingredients will depend upon it for accuracy. Rinse the mustard and cut the heads in half, or quarters if they are particularly large. Shake the mustard dry and lay it out on the baskets or towel-lined baking sheets in single layers. Sun-dry the mustard for 1 to 2 days, just until the leaves start to shrivel and the stems no longer look perky. Cover the mustard if you keep it out overnight. 

3. Prepare your pickling crock and the weights by cleaning and rinsing them very well. Place the weights in the crock and pour boiling water halfway up the crock. Dump out the water when it has cooled and air-dry the crock (as well as the weights) upside-down on a clean tea towel.

Weights on the mustard

4. Measure out your coarse salt: you will need 2.5% of the weight of your mustard. In other words, for every 1 kg you will need 25 g coarse salt. (If you don’t remember how to do this, multiply the total weight of the mustard by 0.025.) Place a head or two of the mustard in a large work bowl and scrub the mustard really well with the salt, as this will help release the juices and speed up the pickling. Transfer the raggedy mustard to the crock and repeat with the rest of the mustard and salt until they have all be used up. Add the optional turmeric.

5. Place the weights on the mustard and press down. Tuck in any pieces that are sticking above the weights, as a flatter surface will help cut down on spoilage. Cover the mustard and weights with cool water. This should be the original weight of the mustard times by about 0.7. (Or, around 700 ml cool water per 1 kg of mustard.) Sprinkle the top of the water with the gaoliang or gin, at a rate of 1 tablespoon per 1 kg of mustard.

Worth the minimal effort

6. Place the crock in a cool, dark area. Cover it and then pour water in the moat around the lid. Check the pickles after a couple of days, as they should start to smell a bit sour. Keep the water level around the lid high to prevent contamination. (If you use another type of pickling crock, follow package directions.) If you have a pickle crock with a moat, you will be rewarded with lots of farts within a day or two. As the farts die down, this means the fermentation is slowing down and the pickles are nearing perfection. Check them after about 3 weeks; cut off a piece and taste it. The pickle should taste tart and gently salty. When you're satisfied, transfer the pickles to sterilized Mason jars or brand new resealable plastic bags or some other spanking clean containers. Refrigerate the pickles in their juices until needed.

Tip

If the arithmetic seems confusing, think of it this way:

1 kg mustard

25 g sea salt

750 ml cool water

1 finger fresh turmeric

1 tablespoon gaoliang or gin

Quick & delicious Cantonese pickles

I seem to be on quite the Cantonese roll lately, and I really don’t know why. Lots of fried rice, stir-fries, custard tarts (of course), and char siu have been traveling through my kitchen for some reason.

Perhaps it was because we had too much Sichuan food in Chengdu last month. (On second thought, no, there is no such thing as too much Sichuan food.) But nevertheless, I’ve been craving things like roasted meats and crunchy pickles and all the other things that get made exceptionally well in places like Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and my neighborhood Chinatown deli.

One day I’m going to master crispy-skin chicken (cuìpí jī 脆皮雞), as that is my absolute must-have. This is usually served with crunchy shrimp crackers – which are made out of ground-up fresh shrimp mixed with rice flour – but I much prefer a flavorful pickle to jazz up the proceedings. Until I wrestle that chicken recipe to the ground, though, I’ll satisfy at least half of my cravings with deli chicken and the other half with a homemade tasty pickle.

And, I’m happy to say, that’s what we have here today.

 

Salted up

Cantonese quick pickles really are worth mastering for many reasons. First, they are easy. Second, they are one of the prettiest pickles around because you have lots of gorgeous hues – green, orange, red, yellow, and white – and a range of crisp textures that makes each bite a pleasure. And third, the seasonings are juuuust right. You have your vinegar, salt, and sugar, but all in a perfectly balanced medley.

This is a standard in just about every Cantonese restaurant I’ve been to, and is especially beloved as an accompaniment to deli meats, like roast duck or char siu pork. I have to point out that homemade pickles are even better. They taste sparklingly fresh because they are sparklingly fresh, and I use super fresh organic veggies, and I spice everything up with a good handful of fresh ginger slices.

I’ve gotten so bowled over by this that I’ve been slipping it into tossed green salads (especially when something like grilled salmon or chicken is on the menu), where it bounces up the flavors a couple of notches and adds lots of texture to what might otherwise be just a boring salad.

Roll-cut the carrots & radishes

We also had it last week alongside some grilled sausages – Italian sausages, mind you – and they were the perfect supporting cast. So you see, having a bowl of these in the fridge makes dinner come together quickly and easily.

You might not believe this, but they also are the secret to great sweet-and-sour. Yes, I know, I know. I used to think that way, too. Sweet-and-sour is a tired cliché that you find on every steam table in every Chinese-American fast food joint. 

But sweet-and-sour has a hallowed history in many parts of China, so we will take a look at a lovely old school recipe that will make you reconsider your position on the subject. 

I mean, just think: those delightful pickles standing in for gassy, semi-raw bell peppers and onions, their tartness enlivening the sauce, their textures bouncing off the meaty nuggets, the sauce a subtle balance of everything you'd wish it might possibly possess, including (gasp) garlic. I know this will make you smile a whole lot and fight for seconds.

 

Sweet pepper triangles

Anyway, I’ll continue my argument next week. For now, let’s go buy some vegetables…

Cantonese pickles

Guăngdōng pàocài 廣東泡菜

Guangdong
Makes 1 quart (1 l)

5 ounces (150 g) yellow rock sugar (about ¾ cup crushed), or white sugar to taste

¾ cup (180 ml) pale rice vinegar

8 thin slices peeled ginger

1 pound (450 g) Asian radish of any kind or color

4 carrots, about 8 ounces (225 g)

3 seedless cucumbers

1 sweet red pepper

1 tablespoon sea salt

1. Place the sugar, vinegar, and ginger in a small saucepan, bring the vinegar to a boil, and then lower the heat to a bare simmer. Stir occasionally, and remove the pan from the heat when the sugar has dissolved. Cool the liquid to room temperature.

Tender cucumber wedges

2. Peel the radish and carrots, and then roll-cut them into pieces that are no more than 1 inch (2 cm) on the widest edge. Cut the cucumbers lengthwise into quarters, and then cut these wedges into pieces about 2 inches (5 cm) long. Cut the pepper in half, seed it and remove the stem end, and then cut it into strips around 1 inch (2 cm) wide before cutting these strips into triangles. Place all of the vegetables in a resealable quart bowl, toss with the salt, and let them sit for 30 minutes to 1 hour. You don’t need to drain the veggies.

3. Pour the sweet vinegar and ginger over the vegetables and toss well. Cover the bowl and refrigerate the pickles for at least a day. Don’t worry if the liquid doesn’t cover the vegetables, as it will gradually reach the top after a couple of hours. Toss around the pickles when you think of it so that they all get a chance to soak up some flavor. Use within 5 days for optimum flavor.

What's in a name? The delightful mystery that is celtuce

Vice Munchies just celebrated Chinese Food Week while we were in New York, which I call auspicious timing. 

Countless great articles make their appearance here, but I particularly liked Clarissa Wei’s editorial (read it and you’ll understand why!).

My own contributions included an article called "Dividing and Conquering the Cuisines of China" on why the concept of the “eight great cuisines” just doesn’t work.

You’ll also find a really delicious lettuce recipe from China's arid regions included here that comes straight out of All Under Heaven. Enjoy!

While we were in the Big Apple, we went out with Munchies senior editor Matt Zuras to a great Henan restaurant in the Elmhurst part of Queens. 

Called Uncle Zhou, we were really impressed by how well everything was prepared, from the Daokou chicken to the sweet-and-sour fish topped with intensely thin and crispy fried pulled noodles to the fennel boiled jiaozi. 

Why can't we have our own great Henan restaurant in the Bay Area, I ask you? Henan was home to the ancient capital of the Chinese empire a couple of thousand years ago. By any measure of history and common sense, this should be a go-to place for delicious food. And it is, if you know about it. 

Now I know what I want from Santa Claus this year...

*  *  *

Celtuce, or stem lettuce, is a particularly Chinese vegetable, one of those strange ingredients that inhabits only one part of the world for some reason, but nevertheless is so delicious that you have to wonder why no one else has yet caught on to this delightful fact. The only problem with this vegetable – aside from its limited availability in Chinese markets – seems to be that no one ever knows what to call it, either in Chinese or in English.

Celtuce is a combination of CELery and letTUCE, which makes a bit of sense, I guess. In Chinese, the proper name is generally wōsŭn 萵筍, although some areas prefer to call it wōjù 萵苣.

The leaves do indeed look a bit like lettuce, and no one really eats them with any passion other than the Taiwanese, where they call the leafy bits literally "A vegetable" (A 菜, or A cài), and stir-fry them with lots of garlic and a dash of salt to create one of my personal favorite greens. 

Some folks say that the Taiwanese name A cài (a weird cross-pollination between English and Chinese) came about because the leaves were once used mainly as duck food, hence yācài 鴨菜 ("duck vegetable"), while other say that the name originally was wōzĭcài 窩仔菜, which more or less means “nest vegetable.” And as if that wasn’t confusing enough, I’ve seen this also referred to in English as the unhelpful “Chinese lettuce,” the odd “asparagus lettuce,” and the I-give-up “celery lettuce.”

Peel down to the jade center

But I stick with celtuce or stem lettuce, mainly these names make more sense. And this vegetable is, when you come right down to it, all about those luscious stalks (yup, in a perfect world this would be called stalk lettuce, since no stems are involved), which are phenomenally beautiful once they are peeled.

Cooks and diners love this oddly delicious vegetable mainly in Taiwan and Sichuan, which makes me think that celtuce probably was introduced to the island during the massive migrations surrounding 1949. In both places, celtuce winds up in stir-fries or blanched for quick pickles, and the flavor is both delicate and unique. It’s really hard to describe… sort of like a cross between romaine lettuce and broccoli stems and stringless celery. In short, it’s crisp and clean.

Summer is the best time to find celtuce in a Chinese market. Look for heavy stalks with their springy green leaves still attached, since they are telling you they are very fresh; older ones will have the wilted leaves trimmed off, and these can still be good, but you have to be a little more circumspect when you shop.

So, what do you look for? Try to locate stalks that are not too thick – just a little over an inch wide is ideal – and yet are the heaviest of the lot. The reason why you do this is that thicker stalks will often be hollow in the center from growing too big, and instead of pure green jade flesh there will be a pithy white gully running through the thickest part. Heavy means juicy, which means fresh, which means delicious. While you're at it, check the stalks over for gouges or other damage.

Chinese peeler

To prepare them, trim off the tops and bottoms. Those bottom ends can be rather obstinate at times, so use care when you lop them off. The skin there will often be really fibrous, too, and so you will have to use either a paring knife or a heavy-duty Chinese peeler (which has a handy knife edge), as shown on the right, to cut through the tough webbing.

As you peel off the skin, be sure to remove any of the white webbing you see, since all you want are the lovely emerald cores. And as you do this, you probably will find the stalk breaking of its own accord – that’s perfectly fine, since you will have to cut it up anyway later on. Do note that the celtuce will lose some of that intense green (okay, almost all of it) when it soaks in the pickling liquid, but will retain it during stir-fries.

This recipe is dead simple and a great introduction to the wonders of stem lettuce. If you find you love it, too, toss it into stir-fries, like the one here. Also, check out this blog post for the dried form, which is weirdly good in a totally different way.

Quick celtuce pickle

Pào wōsŭn 泡萵筍

Sichuan

Serves 6 to 8 as a side

Celtuce:

4 stalks celtuce (around 2 pounds or 900 g)

Water, as needed

Pickling liquid:

½ cup (120 ml) pale rice vinegar

½ cup (120 ml) water

¼ cup (50 g) sugar

1 teaspoon sea salt, or to taste

Garnish:

Chile oil

The gorgeous cores

1. Peel the stalks as directed above. Slice them into wedges of approximately the same width and length, as this will allow them all to cook to the same degree of doneness at the same time. (Most stalks can be quartered lengthwise, except for at the very top and bottom, so you can use that as your guide.) Place the celtuce in a medium saucepan, add about an inch (2 cm) water, cover the pot, place it on high heat, and quickly bring it to a full boil, tossing the vegetables often as the water heats up. As soon as the rawness is barely gone, the celtuce will still have a light crispness, sort of like barely cooked asparagus – don’t cook it beyond this point. Immediately pour out the water and rinse the celtuce under cool running water until it is at room temperature. Drain in a colander.

2. Make the pickling liquid by boiling together the vinegar, water, sugar, and salt. Once the sugar has dissolved, taste it and adjust the seasoning as desired. Cool the pickling liquid completely. Place the celtuce in a resealable container and pour the cooled liquid over the top, which should more or less submerge all of it. Refrigerate this for at least a few hours and preferably overnight.

3. Just before serving, arrange the drained celtuce on serving plates as desired and drizzle with chile oil. Serve chilled.

Taiwanese pickles

Some more wonderful news this week: The Los Angeles Times listed All Under Heaven as one of its 27 favorite cookbooks of the fall. I could not be happier... I mean look at the company I'm keeping! Mom would have been so proud. (However, in all honesty, she never knew that the real reason I learned Chinese was so that I could eat the good stuff for the rest of my life.)

I'm also so thrilled that Jenny Hartin of Cookbook Junkies put All Under Heaven on her short list of her top ten (10!) must-have cookbooks for 1000 Cookbooks. If you are a serious lover of food writing, get to know the Cookbook Junkies and the friendly yet knowledgeable people there - the recommendations are fantastic, and it's where I've learned about and fell in love with many books I otherwise would have never noticed. Yup, I too am a certified cookbook junkie.

Finally, don't forget to come out to the Literary Feast hosted by Les Dames d'Escoffier this coming Sunday in San Francisco. It will be amazing, I promise you. Hope you can join us!

*  *  *

When you visit Taiwan, there are a few places where you absolutely must eat. And I’m not talking about the big food palaces or those swanky little bistros that now line the more fashionable areas of Taipei cheek to jowl. No, you want to wander down the back alleys, out into the little villages, and into the night markets.

China’s great culinary masterpieces are, to be sure, still to be found in its finest restaurants, and I always make it a point to eat to the point of bursting when I go there with old friends, for the foods of Hunan, Jiangsu, Beijing, Sichuan, and Guangdong are rarely better than in my old favorite haunts.

But what I really hunger for are the local treats, the street foods. Deep-fried stinky bean curd, for example, is like a ripe cheese with a crispy crust when done right – and who can argue with crispy cheese? And then the hawker will shove a handful of crunchy pickled cabbage alongside those golden chunks, often bathed in a homemade chile oil. It’s a genius touch: sweet, sour, cool, fresh, and spicy notes bang around in my mouth against the pungent, hot, smooth, and rough character of the bean curd. I always eyeball each pile as I eat, timing things carefully and portioning them just so, and in that way end up with equal portions of the pickles and bean curd by the last mouthful. (That’s dedication, I tell you.)

Salting the cabbage, carrots, & chile

The Taiwanese are no slouches when it comes to the art of creating the perfect pickle out of little more than a handful of ingredients. This is the sort of thing you will find in busy night market stands, at mom n' pop restaurants, and in your friends' homes. There are good reasons for that: this is easy, cheap, delicious, and perfect alongside anything rich or fatty, like pork or a fried chicken leg or a good barbecued Taiwanese sausage. 

If you are hesitant about getting involved in pickling and fermentation, this is an excellent baby step toward mastery, for today's recipe requires that you first just salt the veggies, then toss everything together before letting them sit in a cool place (even a refrigerator will do nicely) until the pickle is as flavorful as you like. The vinegars do the heavy lifting here, so it's not naturally fermented like in this recipe for absolutely stellar Sichuan pickles that are soured with only time and a touch of salt. 

I’ve added some fresh chile pepper to the pickle, but powdered dried chiles work great, as does the addition of absolutely no hot stuff at all. What I really like to do is to drizzle homemade chile oil over a fistful of these chilled pickles, but that is a quick path to addiction that I must by law caution you against.

Be that as it may, something this good should not be reserved for your stinky bean curd celebrations. Consider this a great candidate for sidling up next to sausages of any ilk (shove a handful into a hotdog if you want your eyes to roll back into your head), slipping into sandwiches, or even tossing in a simple stir-fry of meat or chicken or sausage or bean curd – just do it at the last minute so that the crisp, fresh nature of this pickle can be enjoyed to its fullest.

Prep the colorful veggies

Taiwanese pickles

Táishì pàocài  台式泡菜

Taiwan & Southern Fujian

Makes about 8 cups / 2 liters

1 medium round cabbage (about 3 pounds / 1350 g)

1 carrot

1 fresh red chile of any variety, optional

2 tablespoons / 35 g sea salt

2 tablespoons / 30 cc Taiwanese Mijiu (or other mild rice wine)

½ cup / 120 g agave syrup, or some sort of sugar to taste (Turbinado or other raw sugar is nice here)

6 tablespoons / 90 ml white rice vinegar
2 tablespoons / 30 cc apple cider vinegar

Homemade chile oil, optional but insanely good

1. Set a large colander and a large work bowl in the sink. (This will seem like a whole lot of vegetables at first, so have the work bowl there to help manage things. Once the vegetables shrink down, they can all go into the colander.) Rinse the vegetables and pat them dry. Remove any damaged leaves on the cabbage, cut out the core, and tear the cabbage apart into bite-sized pieces (around 1 inch / 2 cm square). Work the leaves apart with your fingers as you do this. Peel the carrot and then cut it into thin julienne. Remove the cap and seeds from the optional chile before shredding it into thin slivers. Toss the cabbage, carrot, chile, and salt together thoroughly in the colander and bowl, and then let them shrink down few hours until they become more manageable. Dump everything into the colander, where they can continue to drain for a couple of hours (or even overnight) while you do something else.

The main seasonings

2. An hour or two before you want to proceed to the next step, simmer the rice wine, sugar, and rice vinegar together in a small (nonreactive) saucepan until it boils. Add the apple cider vinegar, which will provide the necessary sharp edge to this brine. Taste the pickling juice and adjust the seasoning to suit your taste by adding more of any ingredient. Take your time with this, as you are creating the main flavor of the pickle here. Remove the pan from the heat and let the liquid come to room temperature. 

3. Have a large clean jar or two large work bowl ready (again, nonreactive, like glass or steel is good – don’t use things like aluminum, which will have a chemical reaction with the vinegar). The pickles will shrink down over a day or two, so start them out in relatively ample containers so that you can toss them without having them spill out onto your counter. 

Delectable

4. Squeeze handfuls of the vegetables relatively dry, discarding their juices, and transfer them to the jar or bowls. Pour the cooled pickling juice over the vegetables, toss things around a little bit, and then cover the containers and place them in a cool place, like a pantry, basement, or refrigerator. Taste the pickle after around 2 days – whenever it is cured enough for your taste, start eating. (It takes about 3 days for things to hit the sweet spot for me.) The pickle will continue to cure the longer it sits, so try to consume it relatively quickly. Serve chilled in small mounds with the optional chile oil.

Garlic that will improve your life by 1000%

One of the highlights for me whenever we’ve sat down for a northern Chinese hotpot dinner has always been the tawny brown heads of sweet pickled garlic that were plunked down with the plates of pickled cabbage and boiled peanuts. Fixed this way, the garlic evolves from bitingly hot to mellow and sweet, with the vinegar and salt providing cleansing edges. I like my garlic exotically dark, so I use very dark brown sugar and a tasty but cheap balsamic vinegar, which also lends a lovely tang to the little cloves.

But the real prize in this recipe is the vinegar that emerges from this process. Nothing, but nothing can equal this vinegar. It has everything you could ask for in a sauce: sweet, sour, salty, garlic, and all of them in perfect balance. This one ingredient I prize so much that I never give it away, hoarding it like a miser and serving it dribbled over tidbits only when I'm certain that it will be appreciated. Selfish? Oh yes indeed. But completely sensible. Wait until you taste it; you'll understand.

Like so many of China's greatest culinary masterpieces, this is understated, simple, and requires only a modicum of ingredients and preparation. But also like quite a few of my favorite dishes, this does require patience. These lovely heads of garlic have to settle quietly into the sweetened and gently salted vinegar for a couple of months - or even longer if you can bear it - before they surrender their fire and become mellow enough to eat just the way they are. Then and only then do you pluck out a sweetly drowned head of garlic, surreptitiously licking your fingers, and squeeze a lovely clove out of its jacket and into your mouth. 

If you find this as intoxicating as I do, consider preparing a batch every three months or so and have jars continually mellowing away in the pantry or on the shelf. I label my crocks and so put them into regular rotation. As summer draws near, you still will find plenty of use for them, since the luscious sauce is great in salads and drizzled over things like fresh, flavorful tomatoes. I'm getting hunger pangs just thinking about a still warm Brandywine tomato, sliced into wedges, lightly salted, and oozing with this loveliest of vinegar sauces.

A note on the ingredients: I tend to use a good, cheap balsamic vinegar here for a couple of reasons. I haven't been too happy with the taste of lots of the Chinese vinegars I have tried; they seem raw and yeasty, rather than tasting of rice wines that have been nudged over into the realm of delicious tartness. However, there has also been a bit of concern lately over the amount of lead that has found its way into balsamic vinegars, so do your research. 

Warning: may cause cravings

As for the sugar, my hands-down favorite is the extremely dark brown sugar that you can buy in some Korean markets. This sugar is soft and moist and tastes like molasses, and it works wonders here.  Finally, I have read that Chinese garlic is unclean, full of pesticides, and often sold at such outrageously low prices that American farmers can't compete. So, if you worry about things like I do, buy heavy, firm, plump heads of garlic that are organically grown, and you'll find that the flavor just cannot be beat. I take this one step further and plant the biggest cloves so that I have nice green shoots to cook with in the cooler months, as well as more heavy, firm, plump, organic heads to harvest later on.  

Win win.

Sweet pickled garlic cloves 

Táng suàn  糖蒜 

Shanxi

Makes 8 heads of pickled garlic

Special equipment:  

1-quart jar or crock

A plate that fits easily inside the mouth of the jar or crock

Garlic and brining liquid:

8 large heads of fresh garlic

½ cup sea salt

6 cups hot water

Marinade:

3 cups balsamic vinegar

2¼ cups dark brown sugar

1 cup water

2 tablespoons dark soy sauce

1. Clean the heads of garlic, but don’t break them apart.  Peel off most of the outer layers of the garlic skin, leaving only a layer or two over the garlic cloves.  Carefully scrub the root end and cut off as much as possible without cutting into the cloves or breaking the heads.

Organic American garlic

2. Dissolve the salt in the hot water and let it cool.  Place the garlic in the cool salt water and let them soak for about 24 hours to remove some of the harshness and to make the garlic as clean as possible.

3. Place the vinegar, sugar, water, and soy sauce in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil, and then stir it until the sugar dissolves.  Allow the marinade to cool down to room temperature.

4. Remove the garlic from the salt water and place them in the clean jar or crock without rinsing the salt water off.  Pour the cool marinade over them, place the plate on top of the garlic to help submerge them in the marinade, and cover the container.  Lightly stir the garlic every day or two for a week and then store the garlic in a cool place for about 2 weeks before using.  Taste a clove of garlic to see whether its flavor is sweet and relatively gentle.  As soon as the garlic is pickled to your liking, pack the garlic in small jars or plastic containers and store them in the refrigerator; they will keep a long time that way.