Pickled Cabbage

Cabbage left to sour under its own brine, with no vinegar in it at all.

Vegan.

Ingredients

• 1 kg white cabbage, quartered and cored
• 20 g salt, which is 2 per cent of the cabbage's weight
• 1 tablespoon Sichuan peppercorns
• water to cover, boiled and cooled

Method

1. Weigh the cabbage and work out 2 per cent of that weight in salt. The percentage matters more than the spoon count: too little and it rots, too much and the souring stalls.
2. Shred the cabbage coarsely and toss it with the salt in a large bowl. Leave it an hour, turning it once or twice.
3. Pack it into a clean jar, pressing down hard with your fist as you go. Liquid should rise over the top of the cabbage.
4. If it does not rise enough to cover, top it up with cooled boiled water. Anything above the liquid will spoil, so the cabbage must stay under it.
5. Add the peppercorns, then weigh the cabbage down with a smaller jar or a sealed bag of water.
6. Cover loosely and leave it at room temperature. Gas will build up in the first few days, so a tight lid will push liquid out of the jar or worse.
7. It will smell sour after a week and be properly so after two to three. Taste it weekly; when you like it, move the jar to the fridge, which slows it almost to a stop.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under China · All recipes