I’ve learned to use pickles to add texture, flavor, and contrast. The pickle recipe below — based on David Chang’s recipe in Momofuku — is very easy to make.
Ingredients
The original recipe specified rice wine vinegar. Use it if you have it. I haven’t stocked rice wine vinegar recently. Plain white vinegar yields a good-enough tasting pickle to my Pacific Islander palate.
- 1 cup hot tap water
- 1/2 cup white vinegar
- 6 tablespoons white sugar
- 2 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt
- 2 large cucumbers, e.g. these
Procedure
- Slice cucumbers.
- Stir together liquids and seasonings.
- Add cucumbers to container, e.g. this or store-brand equivalent, and cover with brining solution.
- “You can eat the pickles immediately, but they will taste better after they’ve had time to sit — 3 to 4 days at a minimum, a week for optimum flavor” (somewhere around page 65, can’t read my scan).
