Pickle Play III: The Recipes

As we’ve said before: Living in Los Angeles, we rarely have to worry about summer’s harvest spoiling before we can can preserve the goods for winter. Farmers markets year-round. Aint’ no thing. But that doesn’t mean we don’t habitually crave the brine n’ vinegar sting of a good pickle, not to mention the new dimension pickling gives so many dishes.
For that and other reasons (like an admitted case of pantry ADD) we realized recently that fresh pickling was more our pace. It’s as simple as one, two three. Brine. Vinegar. Wait. All you need is salt, water, a vegetable and a vinegar of choice. So, for the pickle project we embarked on last month, we took three farmers market goodies and ‘fresh pickled’ them for less than a work week: daikon, cucumbers and grapes. Each veggie got a different mix of vinegar and extras, but nothing too flashy. The recipes we liked the best are below.
All of ’em turned out strong, as in fermenty breath. Ideas for how to use them once they’re funky are endless (we wrapped them around seitan, plopped ’em on vegan aioli bread, and dropped them on chevre crackers, respectively). But no matter what you do, its hard to screw up if you use a clean towel, fresh veggies and good vinegar.

Pickled Daikon Radish

1 Daikon radish
1 cup kosher salt
3 cups filtered water
2 cups golden balsamic
1 cup champagne vinegar
1 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
1/8 cup kosher salt
1/8 cup whole black peppercorns
1. Wash and peel the outside of the the radish. Using a vegetable peeler, skin the radish into flat, 1-inch wide strips. Set aside.
2. Now, you brine: In a 4-quart or so sealable container, dissolve kosher salt in 3 cups filtered water and stir thoroughly. Add radishes to brine and cover with a clean kitchen towel or plastic bag filled with a bit of brine (to weigh the veggies down) and seal. Let sit room temperature for 24 hours.
3. After a day of fermenting, check to see if any surface mold has formed. If so, don’t freak out; simply scoop it off the surface of the brine. If any gets mixed into the solution it will die pretty quick. After any mold removal, rinse your brined dudes in cold water. Clean out your sealable vessel and put the brined radish back inside.
4. Combine the vinegars, water, sugar, salt and spices in a pot and boil. After you reach a boil, dump the hot acid over the veggies and allow to cool. Weigh down with a towel or a brine filled bag as in Step 2 and refrigerate for a week.

Japanese Pickled Cucumbers

8 Persian cucumbers
1 cup kosher salt
2 cups rice vinegar
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
2 Tbs. kosher salt
3 stalks lemongrass
1 bulb ginger
1. Wash and slice the cucumbers in approx 1/2 centimeter thick slices.
2. Repeat Steps 2 through 4 as above. When you boil the acid bath, make sure to whack your lemongrass a few times to release its oils. Cut it in larger pieces so that its easy to fish out later. Slice the ginger however you want; if you use a mandolin then some serious pickled ginger will be a by-product!
Pickled Red Grapes

1 cups red grapes
2/3 cups white balsamic vinegar
1/3 cup water
1/8 cup sugar
1 tsp. black peppercorns
1 shallot
1. Wash the grapes and slice em in half. We’ve also done this reppie where we just forked the grapes numerous times, but we found that the brine penetrates better if you just cut them. Peel and mince your shallot.
2. Combine the vinegar, water sugar and pepper and bring to a boil. Dump the hot acid bath over the grapes, weigh them down and wait for a week.
Beverage: Brooklyner-Schneider Hopfen-Weiss
Soundtrack: Pixies Palace of The Brine