Patricia Tanumihardja - Asian Pickles at Home: 75 Easy Recipes for Quick, Fermented, and Canned Pickles

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ISBN: Print 978-1-64739-074-7 | eBook 978-1-64739-075-4

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G rowing up in Singapore with Indonesian Chinese parents, I was exposed to a whole gamut of pickles and fermented foods. Many of the pickles I grew up eating were akin to quick refrigerator pickles, vegetables like cucumbers, carrots, and perhaps some fiery bird chiles brined in a sweet-tart vinegar solution. These sweet-tart pickles added both crunch and heat to fried rice or noodles.

My mum also made the quintessential acar kuning, shredded vegetables tossed with a vinegary spice paste that is popular in Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia. She tossed pickled mustard cabbage into soup with sour plums and braised finely chopped pickled cabbage with pork belly. And, of course, no meal was complete without sambal. This assortment of chile pastes and dipping sauces is a flavor bomb, adding spice and savor to any dish.

Fermented foods like tempehfermented tofuand taucheoa fermented bean paste similar to misoshowed up regularly in our diet. In fact, one of my dads favorite sweets was tape (pronounced ta-pay), which is fermented cassava.

Despite eating fermented foods all my life, I only learned about fermented vegetables like kimchi and sauerkraut when I moved to the United States to go to college. I had never considered fermenting on my own until someone gave me a kimchi recipe to include when I was writing The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook . Once I discovered how simple making kimchi was, I couldnt stop.

The bottom line is, if youre intimidated by Asian pickles, dont be. There will be a learning curve, but trust me, you really wont regret it. When you have preserved food on standby, you can easily assemble a healthy, delicious meal. Think of the various sweet, spicy, and sour banchan dishes at Korean restaurants that act as palate cleansers and complement the main dish. Toss pickles into stir-fries and soups, use them to top noodles and congee, stuff them into sandwichesthe possibilities are endless!

Though certainly not an exhaustive treatment, this book will cover in-depth the Asian countries and regions with long histories of preservation: Japan, Korea, China, India, and Southeast Asia. Youll discover that the techniques used (not to mention the flavors created) range from the universal vinegar-pickling and lactofermentation methods to more country-specific methods, like rice bran pickling and miso curing.

Canning isnt a popular tradition in Asia. Thus, Asian pickles typically rely on refrigeration or oil for preservation. That said, I still suggest several recipes that are suited for water-bath canning. So, if your refrigerator shelf is packed or youd like to gift your creations, canning is an option for some of these recipes.

This book is not meant to be a definitive guide, because such a book would have to be hundreds of pages long. Instead, I offer a wide array of recipes, presenting you with an overview of the techniques and flavors you can create. Many of the recipes are traditional, while some are my more personalized modern takes which you can find in the chapter. Once youre comfortable with the basics, you can mix and match methods and ingredients to create a wide array of options to suit your taste buds.

Regardless of your pickling experience, I hope youll find a recipeor manyin this book that youll love.

Even if youve never pickled before, this book will show you how easy it is to get started. Pickling is simply a method of food preservation that involves marinating vegetables in a brine, made with either vinegar or salt. The marinating time depends on the method and can range from mere minutes to days or months. For pickling newbies, starting with quick pickles is probably the best route. Youll find lots of recipes to choose from in .

Generally, pickling involves the following basic steps:

Wash your equipment with hot soapy water.

Prepare your vegetables.

Prepare your brine and spices.

Pack into jars and cover.

Wait!