In the summer it is nice to enjoy refreshing pickled vegetables. After many attempts of different methods to make pickles there are a few that I find particularly not adapted to our life style, and some others that require too much equipment. But there are two that I really like and that are very simple, can be done everywhere, require little ingredients or equipment and work in a few hours. Today I want to introduce the simplest and most efficient way, that works with many of the green summer vegetables such as cucumber, uri, or togan, but also with radishes and daikon. It is called shiozuke 塩漬け in Japanese, and as the name suggested it is a method of pickling vegetables in salt. As a matter of fact it is the same method as making umeboshi or pickled Chinese cabbage… expect that with summer vegetables it takes only a few hours instead of several days or weeks! Today I present the recipe with uri 瓜 a kind of melon/cucumber that is very popular in summer in Japan and that just made its entry in the glossary.
Shiozuke summer vegetables
1/2 uri or 1 Japanese cucumber
1/2 tsp of salt
a little piece of konbu (optional)
Wash and cut the vegetable. It is not really necessary to peel them. Slice them thinly. Cut the konbu in thin pieces. in a bowl large enough, add the sliced uri, the konbu, sprinkle the salt on top. Use a piece of wrap to top and set a weight the size of the inside of the bowl (I used a honey pot filled with water) on top to press the mix. Wait for a few hours before enjoying, and keep in the fridge in the liquid for a few days.
Beware that the liquid when pressing may overflow the bowl, so set the bowl in in a tray or the sink, or use a rather large bowl compared to the amount of vegetable that can receive all the liquid. Another option is to make them in a sealed plastic bag (ziploc…), but I don’t use such plastic bags…
