More Pickles

It is a nice wintry sunny day and my mom-in-law accosted me while I was taking one of those peaceful thoughtful walks with the dog. Could I spare a few minutes to make a vat of pickles? Oh, of course.

We took down the daikon radish that were hanging up in the trees. They are now rubbery and wrinkled. We sliced off the leafy part and prepared a vat by lining it with a large heavy plastic bag. These will become the yellow sliced pickles that are so commonly served with rice.

We mixed together 2 kg of nuka (powdery rice bran from the rice polishing mill) and 1 package of takuan pickling powder and coloring; we prepared 1.3 kg of sea salt for the 35 kg of daikon. The daikon are not peeled or cleaned, only the tops are trimmed off. We started to layer salt and the nuka mixture with daikon, packing the daikon tightly.Obachan says it is important to place the next layer of tubers on top of the previous layer, not in between. Each layer was salted and nuka'd (not sure if that's a word!). We placed 40 kg of stones on top - using old mill stones as weights.

After a week, the pickles will shrink and the water will rise, at that time, we can adjust the weights and make sure the layers are even. We placed the whole thing on the north side of the house where it is cool, covered it with plastic to keep out the rain, cats and mice.

The nuka adds sweetness to the pickles. Actually, we didn't follow the "recipe" because we only had 20 kg of daikon for my batch- she had already made 70 kg worth. I was planning to do the math to come up with the right ratios of the other ingredients but she was in a hurry and just guesstimated the amounts!

Such a simple yet effective way to preserve veggies. We will eventually wash off the nuka (you don't want to eat that or it will scrub out your intestines) and slice the daikon into bite sized pieces.