Pickled Mustard Greens

Mustard greens wilted in the sun and packed dry, so they sour without sitting in liquid.

Vegan.

Ingredients

• 1 kg mustard greens, whole
• 30 g salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar

Method

1. Wash the greens and shake them as dry as you can. Lay them out somewhere warm and airy for a day, turning once, until the leaves go limp and the stems bend without snapping.
2. Wilting first is what makes this different from a brined pickle: there is far less water left in the leaf, so what little comes out later is concentrated rather than diluted.
3. Rub the salt and sugar into the greens, a handful at a time, working it into the stems where they are thickest. Keep going until the leaves darken and start to glisten.
4. Pack them tightly into a jar, stem ends down, pressing each layer before adding the next. Very little liquid will appear and that is correct.
5. Seal the jar and leave it somewhere cool and dark for ten days to two weeks. Check after a week: the colour should have turned from bright green to olive.
6. Rinse before using and squeeze the stems dry. They will still be salty, so whatever you cook them in needs little or no extra salt.
7. Once opened, keep the jar in the fridge and use the greens within a month.

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