Rice Vinegar Pickle recipe

Use this quick and easy rice vinegar pickle recipe for delicious pickled vegetables. Carrots, radish, and cucumbers are some of my favorite vegetables to pickle.

Read through the instructions and most importantly the PRO TIPS and notes at the end before you go shopping and start cooking. Reading everything will help you finish faster and prevent mistakes that could make the dish more challenging or frustrating to cook.

Recipe

Makes 1 lb / 30 min prep time / 5 min cook time

• 1 ½ cup / 350 ml Rice vinegar
• 1 ¼ cup / 300 ml Water
• ¼ cup / 60 g Sugar
• 2 ½ tsp / 15 g Sea salt
• ½ lb / 250 g Carrots
• ½ lb / 250 g Daikon

Instructions

Wash and peel the carrots and daikon. Cut the vegetables into 2 inch (5cm) long pieces. Then cut the rounds into planks and julienne the planks as thin as possible, approximately 1/16 inch (.1cm).

In a pot, combine the rice vinegar, water, sugar, and salt.

Bring the pickle to a boil and add the julienned vegetables.

When all of the vegetables are added, bring the pot to a boil once again and turn down the heat to a simmer for 1 minute.

Transfer the pickles to a metal or glass bowl. Fill up a larger bowl with ice water and place the bowl of pickles on top of the bowl of ice water to cool down the pickle rapidly.

Stir the pickles occasionally to evenly and quickly cool the pickles. Put the cooled pickles in the refrigerator in a glass container with a lid or in a bowl covered with plastic wrap until needed. Stores for 3–5 days refrigerated.

Pro Tips

• Substitute your favorite vegetable in place of carrots and daikon if you’d like to try something different.
• Cut off a small portion of the round part of the carrot and daikon so it lays flat when you cut the planks. This will prevent the round from slipping and reduce the risk of injury.
• The reason why you bring the vegetables and pickle liquid up to a boil again is so the vegetables cook and become tender. This also allows for the pickle to penetrate the interior of the vegetable and absorb the flavor quickly.

Notes

• “Follow the Recipe.” A quote from Colette in one of my favorite movies, Ratatouille, is advice I’d like to give, but also expand on. I think it’s important to follow the recipe, but I think it’s more important to think of the recipe as a guideline. All the ingredients could be the same but each ingredient tastes different. For example, a carrot I buy at the store isn’t going to taste or be exactly the same carrot you will buy at the store. Different brands, farmers, and processing techniques means each dish you make following this recipe may taste slightly different than mine. In this case it’s important to adjust the seasoning to suit your taste and not get too focused on following the recipe exactly. I’m sharing this recipe hoping you’ll attempt to make it and adjust it to make it your own. That’s real cooking, not following the recipe to a T.
• It might also be helpful to consider all cooking times and temperatures as guidelines as well. Everyone always wants to know exactly how long to cook something, but the honest answer is always “It depends.” Every heat source is different, induction, gas, electric, open fire, with varying strengths and designs. Different pots, pans, and tools means there are infinite variables to calculate the exact “time” it takes to cook something. This being the case, it’s important to use the cooking time and temperature suggested as a reference (unless explicitly stated) and equally important to adjust the timing and temperature so you can achieve the best result. Eventually your intuition from experience will tell you when something’s done, or in the case of checking proteins, sometimes a thermometer.
• Always taste your food. How can you tell if something is tasty without checking it first? Well, unless you’re a magician, the answer is, it’s impossible. So, always taste your food as you go and definitely check before you serve or eat it. If the flavor isn’t right, adjust the flavor and seasoning until it is.