Hoa...June is flying by. I'm finally sitting down for a bit to organize what I've done (i.e., cooked & eaten) for the last couple of weeks. This blog, my food diary, has been unintentionally left too quiet for too long. Let me ease in with a simple, pretty pickles.
Vegetable pickles go with so many dishes - sandwiches, fries, meats, on its own...to name a few - I tend to keep replenishing them one batch after another. The basic method is pretty simple and similar, but you can easily create many variations. Different vegetables, different vinegars or even just adding a little more sugar will lead you to a new batch of pickles you can enjoy. The shape and color can be also easily modified. Take out your cookie molds and make different shapes of vegetable pickles - As you can see, I played safe with the shape this time. But the color is...definitely pink.
Here is the basic rule I follow. Just boil the pickling liquid of water and vinegar (1:1 ratio) with sugar and salt, enough to cover the pickling vegetables. If you have black peppercorns (or other peppercorns for variation), bay leaf, cloves, etc., feel free to add them.
Sweet Pickles of Beet & Daikon)
1 daikon, medium-sized, peeled & sliced
1 red beet, medium-sized, peeled & sliced
1 C rice vinegar
1 C water
2 T sugar
1/2 t salt
a pinch of black peppercorns
1 bay leaf
Bring up the liquid of rice vinegar, water, sugar, salt, black peppercorns, and bay leaf and pour it over the beet and daikon. When it cools to room temperature, cover with a lid and keep it in the refrigerator. It's best to wait at least overnight to a couple of days for the color and flavor to come together.
One red beet will make this happen. The picture above was right after adding the pickling liquid. But after sitting in the liquid for a week in the refrigerator, it's hard to tell which is beet and which is daikon.
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KOREAN WORDS
식초 (shik cho) vinegar
설탕 (seol tang) sugar
