February 17, 2015 - Radio Kitchen - Cooking With Pickled Vegetables
Late last autumn we encouraged you to buy up freshly harvested vegetables and preserve them for later use. Well, winter is here and we ought to tell the people how to cook all those pickled veggies. So let's look beyond pickled cucumbers and embrace everything from green beans, beets, carrots, cauliflower, radishes to hot little peppers.
There are a couple characteristics of pickled vegetables that stand out: they combine tenderness with crisp crunchy texture, and they are already well seasoned with vinegar and spices. So think about adding them to any cooking recipe fairly late in the process: you don't have to re-cook from scratch
Nothing like a salad captures the tang and crunchiness of pickled vegetables right out of the icebox.
Pickled Vegetable Salad with Nori Vinaigrette
From Epicurious
6 pickled radishes, thinly sliced
2 large pickled carrots, julienned
1/2 medium pickled red onion, thinly sliced
1/2 cucumber, thinly sliced
5 ounces mixed tender greens (about 6 cups)
sesame seeds
For the dressing:
2 toasted nori sheets
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 tbs soy sauce
1 tbs mirin (sweet Japanese rice wine)
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
1. Grind the nori sheets in a blender, until finely ground. Add oil, soy sauce, mirin and rice wine vinegar and blend until smooth.
2. Lay down a bed of greens, and arrange the pickled vegetables on top. Drizzle with the vinaigrette and garnish with sesame seeds.
Here's a Chinese recipe that takes full advantage of the sweet/tart nature of pickled vegetables.
Egg-Fried Rice With Pickled Vegetables
By Ching-He Huang
3 tbs peanut oil
4 fresh shitake mushrooms, diced
3 large eggs, beaten
2 cups jasmine rice, cooked
2 pinches Chinese five-spice powder
1 1/2 cups diced pickled vegetables
1 tsp toasted sesame oil
Dash of light soy sauce
salt and pepper
3 pickled ramps or fresh scallions
Cayenne pepper to taste.
1. Heat a wok over medium high heat until smoking. Pour in 1 tablespoon of the oil. Add the mushrooms and cook for about 1 minute. Then add the eggs and stir continually until they are softly cooked, about 20 seconds, and then transfer the eggs and mushrooms to a bowl.
2. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons oil to the wok and heat until it is hot. Add the rice, season with the five-spice powder and stir-fry until heated through.
3. Return the mushrooms and eggs to the wok, and toss in the pickled vegetables, and stir until very hot. Season the mixture with the sesame oil and soy and sprinkle with the salt and pepper. Toss well, and then transfer to a serving platter. Garnish with the ramps and sprinkle a little chili powder on the top. Serve at room temperature.
Pickled Vegetable and Ham Hock Soup
A Radio Kitchen Original Recipe
1/2 large onion, chopped
olive oil
1/2 cup each of : pickled carrots, parsnips, cauliflower, and cucumber
6 cups chicken broth
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp caraway seeds
1 ham hock
salt and pepper to taste
1. In a large sauce pan with a cover, sauté the onions in the olive oil over low heat until tender.
2. Divide each of the pickled vegetables into two batches. Add one half of each of the pickled vegetables to the pot, and stir to heat. Pour in the chicken broth, and bring the pot to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cook for 20 minutes.
3. With a hand blender, purée the pickled vegetables in the soup until they are well processed. Add the ham hock and the spices. Cover and cook over low heat for 2 hours, allowing the meat of the ham hock to fall off the bone.
4. Toss in the remaining pickled vegetables and cook over low heat for about 10 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Before serving, fish out as many of the ham bones as you can.
