Recipe - Oshinko (Pickled Chinese Cabbage)

1 Head Chinese cabbage
One fourth cup Salt
1 teaspoon Dried Japanese chili pepper;
optional
1 teaspoon Shottsuru*; optional

* Fish sauce, available at SE Asian food stores, may be substituted. Called
nuoc mam in Vietnamese or nam pla in Thai.

After washing, chop the cabbage into 1inch pieces. In a glass,
Corningware, or any other nonreactive bowl, place the drained cabbage and
sprinkle salt over it, making layers. Place a plate over it and put a
weight on it (at least 5 lbs.) Leave it for 3 days at room temperature,
mixing it once a day and making sure that it is not rotting. If the leaves
are withering, there isn't enough salt. After a day or so, there should be
lots of liquid. It is ready when the cabbage is partly translucent and
soft.

Serve with some katsuobushi (shaved dried bonito) and a little bit of shoyu
(soy sauce). It goes very nicely with a traditional Japanese meal.

Most Japanese don't even know how to make this simple tsukemono anymore.
It's always available at supermarkets in Japan. You can create your own
flavours. My contribution is shottsuru, which was used like shoyu before
shoyu was invented. It is made by fermenting fish in a wooden cask with
lots of sea salt.

P.S. The amount of salt is for a very large cabbage often seen in Japan.
For what I get around here, I use less. Maybe start with 2 tbs of salt and
add more if necessary.

Copyright (c) Ken Iisaka. May be distributed freely provided this copyright
notice is not removed.

Recipe by: Ken Iisaka

Posted to recipeludigest by "Valerie Whittle" catspaw@inetnow.net on Feb
15, 1998