Lots of vegetables go through our kitchen in the summer, so I generally have some sort of quick pickled concoction in the fridge. Along the lines of the stuff in this Edible Boston piece about quick pickling.
Recently I just sliced up an onion and put it in a bowl with plain old white vinegar for an hour. The result still mellowed and softened the onion agreeably enough that I realize I may have been overcomplicating things.
Sure, I’ll still boil and flavor brines for refrigerated quick pickles. But sometimes a quick slice and a brief marination in vinegar—I’m partial to the mellowness of unseasoned rice vinegar—gets the job done. We could have been enjoying more quick pickley goodness all along.
Is anybody else here a quick pickle aficionado?
I’ll try to post results of quick pickle experiments as they may happen.
Yes! I always have a jar of pickled radishes in the fridge. I buy pickled jalapenos frequently - just throw the sliced radishes in the leftover brine once the jalapenos are gone. Leftover jalapeno brine is great on onions, too!
I would like to get into more pickling but find that I don’t plan well enough to do this. I have some picked red onions that I’ve used on home made tacos and carnitas that were great, and they were perfect on quick pork-based lunch bowl. I need some good starter ideas to have something ready for me to go to when I need a quick pickle.
I’m a fan of a quick pickle! I do this quick cucumber one a lot or like @kobuta mentioned above, a red onion pickle on carnitas/pork/tacos is so delicious (and pretty!)
1/2 c. white or apple cider vinegar
1/4 c. sugar
2. t kosher salt
1 T fresh herb (I’ve used parsley, cilantro, dill before or omit entirely - depends what you are eating with it)
1 English Cucumber
Combine. I just shake the S*** out of it and throw the jar in the fridge until we eat it. I suppose you could heat it up quickly to melt the sugar/salt too.
Yes, I often do this with onions or cabbage or broccoli slaw or even julienned carrots when I want something with a bite and scrunch to accompany something meaty.
My favorites for onions:
Red chilli powder abd salt, 5-10 mins
Sumac and salt
Red wine vinegar, salt, sugar
For the other vegetables I go the direction of the accompanying dish:
Vietnamese - fish sauce, sugar, green chilli or sriracha, vinegar
Korean - gochugaru / red chilli, fish sauce, sugar, vinegar
Mexican - lemon/vinegar, cilantro, chili, salt
Middle eastern - sumac, salt, chilli, vinegar, parsley / mint
Endlessly variable. I keep a bag of broccoli slaw around just for this!
Only downside, of course, the missing health benefits from fermentation.
For example kimchi is kimchi… my quick, kimchi-flavored cabbage/carrot/broccoli slaw tastes very similar but is missing the good bacteria (and the deep tang too).
When I have dregs of bottled salad dressing, I add rice vinegar and slosh to dissolve the dregs, then pour this over whatever raw vegetables need using up, that I have sliced or shredded. They vary a lot but I always add sliced onion. Sometimes grapes, orange segments, or melon too. Current jar is honeydew that never ripened, cuke, orange segments, onion, orange juice, rice vinegar, and citrus honey mustard dressing. It’s delish.
Excellent ideas. I love fresh produce, but sometimes there seems to be such a deep chasm between buying it (or growing it) and then actually prepping it to be edible, whether that is washing chopping, washing peeling chopping, deseeding, etc. Such a deep chasm that things sit and then I feel bad and finally process them but they are no longer at their peak.
I made pickled sugar snap peas last week. Refrigerator pickle not quick pickle really, they take about a week to get really tasty, but then they last well.
My grandfather always drank the pickle juice left in the jar after the pickles were gone. Might you know if people have a reason for doing that or do they simply find the brine tasty?
Whenever, my stomach is empty I need quick pickling’s.
if there is cooked rice but nothing to eat with it, i use chopped onions and tomato with curd, it takes less time mix all three, if stored in fridge and eaten after an hour taste enhanced,
few things i picked from here. itsallabout.online/recipes/breakfast.html
I suppose you could heat it up quickly to melt the sugar/salt too.
