In Japan, cabbage, carrots and scallion are lightly "pickled" in salt. After a few hours, the
salt draws out the sweetness of the vegetables, which remain crunchy and fresh-tasting.
I’ve been using ancient Japanese sea salt a lot this week: Its delicate but fulsome flavor, the result of steeping pure Inland Sea salt water with seaweed--has become so irresistible that I’ve been nibbling it when no one is looking . I started to wonder: Do the Japanese use salt differently than we do?
In Hiroko Shimbo’s book, The Japanese Kitchen. I found a recipe for salt-pickled cabbage, or kyabetsu no sakuseki zuke, that is about as far from Kosher dills, bread and butter pickles and hot garlic dills as you can get. There’s no vinegar at all in this recipe, only salt, cabbage, carrot, peppery shiso leaf and the paste of a single umeboshi plum that has itself been pickled in salt. And unlike most Western pickles, this quick cabbage pickle tastes fresh and despite the salt, ever so slightly sweet.
For centuries, the Japanese have pickled vegetables in salty brine as a way of preserving them. But for more modern pickles, ready to eat in hours, Shimbo says that salt should amount to only 2 percent of the weight of the vegetables. Normally such pickling is done in a special pickling pot which has “an inner lid that is screwed down to apply the proper pressure to the vegetables,” But, she suggests, you can also put the vegetables in a container and top them with a plate weighted down with cans of food weighing about 2 pounds. After 5 hours in the refrigerator, you have a very mild, still fresh-tasting “pickle.”
I decided to try it, with a few small changes. I used both green and red cabbage to make it more colorful, and as shiso leaves are in short supply around here in January--my favorite Asian greengrocer mournfully held up a dead plant and said, “Not till summer”--I substituted slivered scallions. Obviously they lack shiso’s minty, peppery taste but I liked the mild onion flavor the scallions added to the pickle. And instead of buying whole umeboshi plums, I used a teaspoonful of sour, salty umeboshi paste.
I gave some thought to the salt. I made one batch with Oshima Island Red Label sea salt, a simple but expensive Japanese sea salt. And, quite profligately, I made another with fluffy French fleur de sel. The Oshima Island salt made a good pickle, but the fleur de sel coaxed all the sweetness of the cabbage to the fore. Shimbo, incldentally, just uses plain salt.
Be sure to eat the cabbage as soon as it is ready. At 5 hours, there is a pleasing balance of sweet and salty flavors, and, though slightly wilted, the cabbage is still crunchy. If it sits much longer, especially overnight, the salt will take over.
Quick Salt-Pickled Cabbage
(adapted from Hiroko Shimbo, The Japanese Kitchen)
Makes about 3 cups
Ingredients for the pickle:
1/2-pound green cabbage cut into 1-1/2 inch pieces
1/2-pound red cabbage, cut into 1-1/2 inch pieces
1 medium carrot, julienned
1 rounded teaspoon umeboshi paste (see note)
2 tablespoons mirin (sweet cooking wine) (see note)
3 scallions, green tops only, slivered and cut into 2-inch lengths
1 tablespoon sea salt
White sesame seeds, toasted (for garnish)
Shoyu (Japanese soy sauce) (see note)
Method:
1. Bring 2 quarts of water to boil. Put the cabbage and carrot in a colander and pour the boiling water over them. Cool the vegetables under cold running water and drain them well.
2. Mix the umeboshi paste with the mirin. In a large bowl, combine this mixture with the vegetables and the scallions. Add the salt and toss.
3. Put the vegetables in a flat-bottomed container, position a plate on top to cover them, and weight the plate with a clean stone or unopened food cans weighing about 2 pounds. Refrigerate for 5 hours.
4. Before serving, toast the sesame seeds: Heat a small skillet over a low to medium flame, then add the seeds and toast them, shaking the skillet occasionally, until the seeds are heated through and plump looking, about 1 to 2 minutes. Grind them coarsely in a mortar and pestle.
5. To serve, drain the liquid from the pickled cabbage. Sprinkle with the sesame seeds, drizzle with a little soy sauce and serve with grilled pork, chicken or meaty fish, such as swordfish, and rice.
Note: I found Eden Umeboshi Paste at Whole Foods. Mirin, shoyu, and, in season, shiso (or perilla) leaves, are available at Asian markets. Mirin and Japanese soy sauce can also be found in the international aisle of some supermarkets.