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!

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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.

Drunken cukes

I'm always in the mood for a new pickle to snazz up my meals. 

I mean, I just love having a few containers of homemade goodies ready and waiting to stuff alongside a grilled fish or roasted chicken and ratchet the meal up a couple of bars. But with the exception of such naturally fermented wonders as Traditional Fermented Sichuan-Style Pickles, almost every other version relies on vinegar to give the ingredients that delightful edge.

And so, it is with considerable delight that I introduce this heretofore hidden gem, Cucumbers Pickled with Fermented Rice. Most likely hailing from the Jiangsu region, today’s recipe takes Homemade Fermented Rice and puts it to wonderfully good use. The wine lees impart a slightly tartness, but that is all, making these winy rather than sour.

Cucumbers submerged in rice lees

What is nice about that, besides the alcohol, of course, is that the pickles thereby turn very subtle and tasty and downright refreshing, so much so that I've gotten accustomed to stashing a jar away in the fridge for boozy snacking alongside some sausages, say, or sliced on a plate to fill out a dinner table for surprise guests.

This unique way with the pungent wine and lees of Jiangsu is literally referred to in Chinese as “wine lees cucumbers,” but as you might be expecting by now, other names also float around among its small but discerning fan base, such as 酒糟泡茶 jiŭzāo pāocài. I’m sure there are even more handles hiding out there that are variations on this basic theme, and they all will be more or less descriptive of what’s going on here, with the jiuzao working away on the cucumbers (huanggua) or giving you pickles (paocai).

Another different characteristic of this type of pickle is that the cucumbers are sun dried for a day or two to shrivel them a bit and toughen up the skin. This makes them better able to withstand the onslaught of being drowned in raw rice wine for a couple of weeks.

You can fool around quite a bit with the basic recipe, adding less or more sugar, tossing in some freshly chopped red chilies just before serving, sprinkling on some Toasted Ground Sichuan Peppercorns or toasted sesame oil, or decorating the pickles with some shredded green onions or cilantro sprigs. The sky’s the limit, really…

Cucumbers pickled with fermented rice 
Jiŭzāo huángguā 酒糟黃瓜
Jiangsu

Makes about 2 pounds 

2 pounds Japanese or Persian cucumbers

4 cups Homemade Fermented Rice

3½ tablespoons sea salt, divided

2 tablespoons sugar

Lightly shriveled by the sun

1. Rinse the cucumbers and pat them dry, and use only ones that are perfect with no bruises or bad spots. Place the cucumbers on a woven tray or some other flat container that allows air to flow around them easily. Cover the cucumbers lightly with a mesh or coarsely woven cloth to keep out the insects, and place the tray in the sun for a day during hot weather or 2 days during cooler weather; bring the cucumbers indoors during the evening, as you don’t want dew to get them wet again. When the cucumbers are slightly shriveled, they’re ready for the next step.

2. Place the cucumbers in a medium work bowl and rub them all over with 1½ tablespoons salt for a few minutes; really work that salt into the skin. Leave the cucumbers to sweat in a cool place like a kitchen counter (or in the fridge during hot weather) for 24 hours. Drain off the liquid and discard. Place the salted cucumbers on a plate so that they do not touch each other and let them dry in the sunshine for at least half a day during hot weather or a full day during cool.

Salt the shriveled cukes

3. Arrange the cucumbers in a resealable plastic container or clean glass jar that is at least as high as the cucumbers are long. Pour in the fermented rice (both lees and wine), the rest of the salt, and the sugar. Cover the container and shake it gently to distribute the salt and sugar. Refrigerate the cucumbers for at least 2 weeks, shaking the container now and then to keep the cucumbers submerged. After 2 weeks, taste one and see whether it is a) fermented enough and b) has enough seasoning. Keep the pickles in the fermented rice until you want to use them, and try to eat them all up within no more than a month, or before they start to get soft. 

Tips

Keep the pickling lees for another batch. It will stay tasty and healthy for a while if refrigerated, thanks to all of that alcohol and salt. Just taste it before you want to use it again to make sure the flavors are still balanced. 

Cucumbers rot easily; there's no two ways about it. What I do to slow Mother Nature down a bit is to place a paper towel in the plastic bag with the cukes (don't wash them until you are going to use them) and keep the bag open so that any moisture can escape. Keep an eye on them, and use them before they slime up.

Crispy Taiwanese huagua pickles

Few pickles have the distinctively Taiwanese taste that these little guys do. And I can't think of any other area of China that makes something even remotely similar. 

For the longest time, the only way we could ever enjoy them was the form in which they showed up here on America's shores: in jars or cans direct from Taiwan. Whenever my husband would occasionally get cravings for these pickles with the sweet local name of "flower squash" or huagua, I would find him lingering in front of the pickle shelves at the local Chinese grocery store, trying to decide among the different brands.

I've always liked these pickles to a certain muted degree because they add a lovely piquance to many Taiwanese ground pork dishes, especially the one called guazirou that is seasoned with little more than chopped pickles and their juices. Simple and luscious, it's an inspired combination.

Crunchy fresh cucumbers are key

But I rarely could get too excited about the pickles just by themselves. I think it was because they always tasted too much like the can or the jar from which they had just emerged, and there was always a strong undercurrent of preservatives with names too long to pronounce. The Chinese have a word for this kind of flavor: men, or stale. 

Western pickles can have the same drawback, of course. Supermarket dills often are a genuine letdown, as they taste tired and feel limp. On the other hand, if you've ever had a good deli pickle out of a barrel -- crispy and garlicky and still just a tad raw in the center -- you know what I'm holding up as my personal gold standard.

And when it comes to Taiwanese pickles, this recipe is where I finally found a new contender, so bye-bye canned huagua.

Dried licorice root, or 甘草

These pickles are ridiculously easy. The first secret is to boil them for exactly one minute, no more; this gives them the perfect balance of cooked and crisp. The second secret is a nice mixture of soy sauce, sugar, and rice vinegar that just smells like a Taiwanese grandma's kitchen. And the third secret is a little-known herb called licorice root.

Yes, licorice, as in licorice candy. Called gancao, you can find this in an Asian market, but the best place to buy herbs of any sort is -- you guessed it -- at a Chinese herbalist's. This way, the licorice will not only be super fresh, but you can buy just a tiny pinch of it, and if you are buying it by weight instead of by the package, it will be very inexpensive.

Licorice root is said to have all sorts of medicinal properties, but here it is used in such a small amount that it is just showing up for the flavor, as a simple background note, one that is very subtle yet very authentic. If you can't find it, a pinch of fennel or anise will be a close enough match.

Briefly cook the ingredients

Taiwanese huagua pickles 
Huagua 花瓜
Southern Fujian, Taiwan
Makes about 1 cup pickles

3 Persian cucumbers
4 tablespoons good soy sauce
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons white rice vinegar
1 piece slice dried licorice root

1. Rinse the cucumbers, pat dry, and trim off the ends. Slice the cucumbers into quarter-inch rounds. Place the rounds in a small saucepan and add the rest of the ingredients.

2. Bring everything to a boil for exactly one minute and then remove from the heat. Allow the cucumbers to cool to room temperature, and then pour the cucumbers and marinade into a clean, covered jar. Cover the jar and chill the pickles overnight. Use within a week or two, and keep refrigerated.

Tips

Persian cucumbers: the best

Persian or Japanese cucumbers are the perfect size for these pickles, and they do not have to be peeled. So-called pickling cucumbers are tougher skinned and much thicker, while salad cucumbers are just wrong in every way. Hold out for the Persians.

Poke the pickles down into the jar so that they are covered by the marinade; this will help keep them from turning bad. Use a clean pair of chopsticks or a fork to pluck them out of the jar, as this will cut down on contamination.

These pickles are great with congee (rice porridge), and are traditionally paired with cooked brined eggs, seaweed, and other savory dishes for breakfast or late night snacks.

Season these pickles any way you like. Ginger or garlic can be added to the mix, or chili flakes, or onions, or whatever seizes your fancy. The recipe as written is in the true Taiwanese style, but don't feel constrained!

Sichuan's gorgeous radish pickles

Now that the Christmas season is upon us, I have been devising an Asian-American feast for Zester Daily that will be published as a series over the next couple of weeks. Some of the sides, though, will be linked to here so that I don't have to give them short shrift, including these pickles, a super easy sweet potato recipe from Shanxi, the savory fava bean pâté from Shanghai, and my favorite sesame rolls from Sichuan. 

Add to this a turkey that is flavored with the deep soy marinades of northern China, a lotus-wrapped risotto from Guangdong, and even a sorbet inspired by the island province of Hainan, and you have many of China's most enticing cuisines represented on one groaning table.

Today we'll look at some truly effortless pickles which are so good that people clamor for the leftovers. Very different from the spiced peaches, sweet gherkins, and watermelon pickles that my grandmother used to serve with our family feasts, the basic idea of combining sweet and tart to combat and complement rich flavors seems to stretch across all sorts of cultures and food traditions. For example what would a pastrami on rye be without a kosher dill? 

The Chinese too often like gently tart pickles to accompany roasted poultry dishes, and here is a traditional version from the central Chinese province of Sichuan that works particularly well for a holiday dinner. It is extremely easy to make, can prepared days in advance, and tastes wonderful even in the next day’s turkey sandwiches. 

An Asian radish trio

I have used some watermelon radishes as shown in the photos here, which ended up supplying a beautiful red hue to the pickle and made it look even more Christmassy than usual. (Shown in the picture to the right, starting from the upper left and going clockwise, is a green Chinese, Korean, and watermelon radish.)

But go with whatever mild Asian radishes you have in your area. Icicle radishes (also known as daikon) and even regular little Western radishes can be used in a pinch, and they look lovely too with their pink rims and white centers.

One delicious variety that you should look out for is that football-shaped Korean radish with a green top and white body. These radishes are so mild that I often peel and slice them up to munch on like apples. Very sweet and not in the least hot or gassy, these are a true cold weather treat!

Icicle radish pickles 
Chuanshi pao luobo 川式泡蘿蔔   
Sichuan

That same trio sliced

Makes 1 quart

4 pounds Chinese, Korean, or Western radishes, trimmed
1 tablespoon sea salt
2¼ cups pale-colored rice vinegar
1½ cup sugar
1½ cup water
5 to 10 small fresh chilies, or to taste
2 tablespoons sliced ginger

1. Start this recipe anywhere up to 4 days before you wish to serve it. Peel the Chinese or Korean radishes and halve them before slicing each half into thin slices with a knife or mandoline slicer. If you are using small Western radishes, just trim off the rootlets and leaves before slicing them. Place the sliced radishes in a large colander, set it on a large plate and toss the radishes with the salt. Let the radishes sweat for 1 or 2 hours to remove most of their moisture.

Prepare a spicy-sweet vinegar

2. While the radishes are sweating, mix the vinegar, sugar, water, chilies, and ginger together in a medium, non-reactive saucepan and bring the pickling solution to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and gently cook for about 20 minutes; taste and adjust the seasoning. Remove the pan from the stove and let the pickling solution come to room temperature.

3. Grab small handfuls of the radishes and gently squeeze out most of the moisture, but don’t rinse them. Just place the squeezed radishes in a 1-quart bowl, pour the pickling solution over them, and refrigerate covered for up to 4 days. Drain however much of the pickles you wish to use and serve them chilled.