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Chili pickles- Easy and quick
Essentially non-oil base, almost no cooking is
required. Can be taken as complimentary to a dish, e.g. chili
pickle to noodles, ginger pickle to sushi.
Can also be taken as an entree e.g. papaya pickle, ginger pickle,
and most Chinese pickles.
The vinegar pickle base:
- 1 cup cider vinegar or
Chinese rice vinegar
- 4 tbsp sugar (variable)
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1 tbsp lemon juice.
Warm the vinegar base, stir till sugar and salt dissolves. Add
anything to be pickled.
10 green chilies, 8 cm long, washed and dried
thoroughly, diced circular.
The most important procedure is the drying process.
If not dried properly, the pickle will go bad very soon. Wash the
stuff to be pickled, in this case, chilies, thoroughly.
Pat dry or
air dry thoroughly. This ensures that the pickle have a long
shelf-live.
Further refrigeration prolong it too.
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Chili pickle |
Add chili to the pickle base and mix well.
Let cool. Refrigerate
for the pickle to remain crunchy even after 6 weeks. Pickled chili
tastes less fiery due to the sweetening
effect of the sugar.
Besides chili, you can use the same
vinegar pickle base to
pickle onions, cucumber, zucchini, garlic, ginger, mango, cabbage,
beet roots, carrot, etc.
Ginger pickle for sushi
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Ginger pickle turns pink naturally |
Use only very young ginger. Old ginger
will be too fibrous. Scrape off the skin, wash and leave
dry thoroughly, for 1 to 2 days. Slice thinly. Add just
enough of the pickle vinegar base to cover. Refrigerate.
Cut chilies can be added for luring presentation.
Pickled ginger, on long keeping, will turn pink. If you
need instant effect, add some edible dye.
Pickle melon skin
Here is a special
pickle recipe,
recycling the otherwise
discarded melon skin.
Serve 3, cook time 4 minutes
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| Pickle melon skin |
Ingredients
- 400 g melon skin
- 1 tsp salt for marinating purpose
- 2 tbsp finely chopped garlic
- 2 tbsp rice vinegar
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 tsp Szechuan peppercorn
- 2 tbsp cooking oil
- 1 tsp sesame oil
- chili and celery for garnishing
Method
- Cut away the hard outer skin of melon skin, leaving only the
crunchy succulent part. Cut into strips. Marinate with salt for 10 minutes.
Rinse lightly and drain dry. Chill for 1 hour to get the crunchy feel.
- Heat oil, fry peppercorn for 3 minutes. Cool.
- Add all ingredients to the melon strips, mix well. Add the
fragrant peppercorn oil,
sesame oil. Garnish.
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Onion pickle:
Skin and trim the big onions. Air dry overnight to ensure
thorough drying. Cut into 8 sections, but without breaking
the whole
bulb. Add some cut chilies. Add to the
warm vinegar pickle base.
Refrigerate for a few days.
Onion pickle |
Chinese pickle -
Cantonese style mixed vegetable pickle
Mixed vegetable pickle - Chinese pickle |
1/2 turnip, 1/2 cucumber, 1 carrot, to be cut into
bite pieces.
10 slices of ginger. Marinate them
with 1 tbsp salt. Let stand for 6
hours.
Rinse lightly, drain, add cut chili rings.
Add warm
vinegar pickle base. Mix well. Refrigerate
for 5
hours before serving. Taste even better overnight.
Chinese pickle - Szechuan style cabbage pickle
This tastes good and crunchy
Cabbage pickle - Chinese pickle |
1/2 cabbage, 1 turnip, 1 carrot, 2 cm long ginger,
1 cayenne
chili, to be cut into pieces.
Let dry for 12 hours.
Pickle base:
1 tsp Szechuan peppercorns, sauté till fragrant.
Add to 2 tbsp
rice wine, 4 tbsp rice vinegar,
1 tsp salt. Add to cover the
vegetables.
Refrigerate for 3 - 4 days before serving.
The following recipes use oil:
Chili and
vegetable pickle
Spicy pickled vegetables
- acar
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