Shibazuke Pickles
Ingredients
- 3 Japanese/Chinese eggplant (400 g)
- 2 Persian/Japanese cucumbers (170 g)
- 3 Myoga ginger (54 g)
- 1 inch ginger (22 g)
- salt (kosher or sea salt; use half if using table salt) (11 g - 2% of total vegetables)
Pickling
- 20 Shiso leaves (Ooba)
- 4 Tbsp ume plum vinegar
- 1 Tbsp mirin
Instructions
-
Gather all the ingredients. Wash the vegetables and weigh them. My vegetables weigh 573 g. Use salt equivalent to 2% of vegetables’ total weight, which is 11 g.
-
Cut eggplants in half lengthwise and slice diagonally.
-
Soak the eggplants in water to prevent from changing color.
-
Cut the ends of cucumbers and cut again in half lengthwise.
-
Remove the seeds with a teaspoon and slice diagonally.
-
Cut myoga in half lengthwise and julienne.
-
Peel the skin and julienne the ginger.
-
Combine all the vegetables in a freezer bag and sprinkle the salt.
-
Mix all together and knead the vegatables. Press the vegetables with 2 x weight of vegetables (roughly 1 kg). Leave at room temperature for half day (I recommend just 1 hour - See my blog post for the reason).
-
Drain the vegetables into the strainer. Squeeze the liquid out from the vegetables and transfer back to the bag.
-
Cut the shiso leaves into juliennes.
-
Add shiso leaves, ume plum vinegar, and mirin in the bag.
-
Mix and knead the vegetables.
-
Remove the air out of the bag and press with heavy object. Keep in the refrigerator for 2-3 days and you can start eating it. Transfer to an airtight container or mason jar and consume in 2 weeks.
Recipe Notes
Use Red Purple Shiso Leaves instead of Green Shiso Leaves: Prepare 30 red purple shiso leaves and salt (2% of shiso weight). Divide the salt into 3 portions. Combine the shiso and 1/3 of salt and knead well. Squeeze water out and continue 2 more times. Then add 2 Tbsp mirin and 2 Tbsp rice vinegar. Then transfer that to a bowl with tightly-squeezed vegetables.
Recipe is from this Japanese website.