Pickling at Home

Pickled vegetables are an ideal food partner of meat dishes, especially fatty meat dishes.  The acidity of the vinegar cuts right through all that fat and indulgence.  It makes you feel less guilty, and even a little healthy for adding more vegetables to the the meal - healthy, despite that addition of a little salt.

Our last few batches of pickled vegetables have been using David Chang's recipe from his Momofuku cookbook.  He uses a delicate addition of salt and sugar, along with vinegar and water, that does not overpower the taste of the vegetable at all.  It really lets the actual vegetable shine.

When pickling, bittermelon is a staple for our fridge.  It's also fun to experiment with different vegetable and even fruits, like green mangos and green papayas.  Pickling is a great way to preserve vegetables and it lasts for a couple weeks in your fridge, so you'll always have a side dish ready to serve.

If you can't see the slide show here, check out my Flickr album: Pickling at Home