I’ll admit it, early on in my formative years I was in a
pickle more often than not. Forging excuse notes from Mom when I was in the 3rd
grade (thinking back, it took a lot of cajones
to try to imitate Mom’s immaculate cursive). Smuggling unappealing food in my
milk carton past the teacher to the “dump” bucket (way back when, teachers did
lunch plate checks to make sure students consumed most of their lunch). Getting
other students in trouble when they repeated my “hushed” comments in the back
of the class. You get the picture, not exactly a role model elementary school
student.
And during the same time period, I never really cared for
culinary pickles as well. Namasu, not
really. Dill pickles, nope. About once a year Dad made a large batch of miso based cabbage pickles but I didn’t
enjoy them after he procured a batch of Napa cabbage that wasn’t free of
“critters” whose carcasses eventually floated to the top of the pickling brine.
But time moves on and life changes including our palates
and I now find pickles with their sweet, salty, sour and sometimes bitter
flavors perfectly balance and complement the richer flavors of fats and
proteins.
Chinese Pickles
My favorite application can be found right in my own
hometown though you probably can find it in yours as well. It’s usually just
listed on the menu as Beef or Pork with Sweet and Sour Cabbage. The perfect
blend of thinly sliced beef or pork with pickled mustard cabbage. And it should
be mustard cabbage because only mustard cabbage has that unique flavor with a
hint of bitterness that by itself can balance the richness of beef or pork. But
now add both a sweet and sour component to the mix and you now have food
nirvana. If I ever do another Pop-Up dinner, I’ll try to create my own version
of the traditional Italian Beef Sandwich. You know, the thinly sliced beef
dipped in gravy topped with giardinera
or Italian pickled vegetables. Well, filling a hoagie roll with wok fried beef
and pickled mustard cabbage would make it a Chinese Beef Sandwich.
Korean Pickles
I enjoy the full range of banchan served at Korean restaurants which include many pickled
dishes but my favorite is still the classic kim
chi. And creating this classic Korean pickle doesn’t even involve adding
any acid or vinegar. The acids are created as the cabbage naturally ferments.
But the end product has a versatility rivaling most of its other vinegared
cousins by functioning perfectly as a side dish, chopped and incorporated into
a main dish (kim chi stew), chopped
and stir fried for a perfect starch (kim
chi fried rice) or used along other fresh vegetables for a vegetarian
selection (kim chi mandoo). And other
than the salty and slightly sour qualities it brings to the table, it also adds
an extra dimension – spice!
Vietnamese Pickles
Though it’s the only Vietnamese pickle that I know, those
julienne slices of sweet and sour daikon
and carrots in a banh mi are one of
my favorite sandwich additions. And it doesn’t specifically have to be a banh mi sandwich. I enjoy them in tuna
sandwiches, turkey sandwiches and even veggie patty sandwiches. But the daikon and carrot do chua shine best in a traditional banh mi as their sweet, tart and salty flavors balance the rich
roasted pork and pate, creamy mayonnaise and herbal cilantro in what I consider
one of the best sandwiches ever created. And to think that I never really
embraced namasu which traditionally
uses the same root vegetables and is also pickled. Maybe if Mom placed some namasu in a banh mi like sandwich, things would have been different.
Japanese Pickles
Though I’ll still reach for do chua before namasu, I
do enjoy miso flavored pickles and
occasionally make my own. However unlike Dad’s version which uses Napa cabbage,
I prefer using head cabbage for my version. And it’s not because of nightmares
seeing “critters” floating on the brining surface, I simply like the crunch
that head cabbage provides. But there is one Japanese pickle that I crave over
all others. Yatsumi-zuke. Obaachan used to occasionally make a
batch and she even gave me the recipe she used and though I dearly loved Obaachan and her yatsumi-zuke and appreciated every batch she created, I craved the yatsumi-zuke sold at the old Tropics
Market in the old Farmer’s Market across Ward Warehouse. It was always stored
in those 4 gallon sized glass “cracked seed” vessels which looked like huge
apothecary bottles in the refrigerated section next to the produce. When I
started noticing that it wasn’t always available, I asked one of the clerks if
it was possible to get the recipe (the clerk was actually one of the owners of
Tropics), she said even they didn’t know the recipe. A retired employee provided
them with the yatsumi-zuke but as she
got older, made it less frequently until she eventually passed away.
But what makes yatsumi-zuke
so special? For starters, it’s a combination of head and mustard cabbage so it
provides a nice crunch with a little bitterness. The brine also contains not
just sugar and vinegar but also some powdered dashi which usually includes both seaweed and bonito extract to
boost the umami. Plus a touch of shoyu, garlic and ginger for extra kick.
So much flavor that I can consume it as my main course. A bowl of steaming hot
rice, yatsumi-zuke, a single fresh
raw egg and a couple of dashes of furikake…
Heaven! No, make that HEAVEN!!!
So while the Tropics yatsumi-zuke
is a distant memory, I still have Obaachan’s
recipe which is a reasonable substitute and can be consumed with the same
applications.
Yatsumizuke
1 medium cabbage
3 bunch mustard cabbage
¼ cup Hawaiian salt or coarse sea salt
2 tbsp sesame seed (optional)
Cut vegetables into bite sized pieces. Mix with Hawaiian
salt and let sit for 30 minutes then rinse and squeeze out excess water. Mix
with sesame seed.
1/3 cup shoyu
¼ cup vinegar
¼ cup brown sugar
1 small garlic clove, minced
Dash of Ajinomoto
½ package dashi no
moto
Small piece fresh ginger (optional)
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