Pickled Daikon, Guizhou-style (酸萝卜) | Chinese Cooking Demystified

Pickled Daikon! This Guizhou-style pickle is a classic ingredient in the province, and's used in a number of dishes. Its characteristic pink color comes from using red-skinned daikon in the process - an ingredient unfortunately unavailable outside of China - so we'll be using some red radishes together with some bog standard white Daikon in order to get the job done.

The following description box recipe will also be posted over to /r/CasualChina, if you prefer things in Reddit form:

https://www.reddit.com/r/CasualChina/comments/ky7g6f/recipe_guizhoustyle_pickled_daikon_%E9%85%B8%E8%90%9D%E5%8D%9C_oc/

INGREDIENTS

- Daikon (白萝卜), 400g.
- Red radishes (樱桃萝卜), 100g. Note that this ingredient isn't available everywhere in China. Only peels needed.
- Salt, 1 tsp.
- Ginger (姜). A couple pieces or ~1.5 inches.
- White rice vinegar (白米醋), 4 parts, ~1/2 cup
- Sugar, 1 part, ~2 tbsp

Our recommendation re vinegar/sugar quantity is to first layer everything in your pickling jar, then using a measuring cup pour in enough vinegar to cover it. Depending on your jar, this might be more or less than the half cup we used, so adjust your sugar accordingly - you're looking for a ratio of four parts vinegar to one part sugar. For example, if you use 3/4 cup of rice vinegar, add 3 tbsp of sugar instead of two.

PROCESS

1. Cut the daikon into roughly 1cm x 1cm x 2 inch sticks. Peel the red radish.

2. Add the 1 tsp salt to the daikon sticks & radish peels. Toss to combine well. Let it sit for 20 minutes.

3. Squeeze some more of the liquid from the Daikon out, and give it a couple more tosses.

4. Layer your pickles: add the ginger at the bottom, then press down a layer of daikon sticks, then add a layer of radish skin. Repeat layering the daikon and the radish skin until the jar is filled.

5. Pour in your vinegar - take note of how much vinegar you added. We're working off a ratio of four parts vinegar to one part sugar. For our jar, we added a half cup vinegar, so then we sprinkled in two tablespoons sugar.

The pickle will be ready in two days.

Also, note that we just used the peeled radish for something else, but if you don't have any plans for them, feel free to just slice them in half and toss them in your pickling jar with everything else.

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Outro Music: คิดถึงคุณจัง by ธานินทร์ อินทรเทพ
Found via My Analog Journal (great channel): https://youtu.be/GHaL5H-VYRg