Sunday, April 24, 2016

Sagohachi Pickling Base - Part 2


Look how da cucumbers came out! The texture is perfect. The malty flavor is nice.  One problem . . . 


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sooooo salty. Maybe I left it in the paste too long . . . around 15 hours.  
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So after I took the above pictures I threw them in a bowl of water.  I might have to do something like this to tone down the saltiness. We'll see.
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Look what I got at the swap meet yesterday for $2. 
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I've read that I can reuse the pickling base, so I put the eggplant in it. 
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After about 5 hours nothing much was happening. With the cucumber, liquid would start accumulating and every couple of hours, I would have to drain it out. It wasn't doing that with the eggplant. So I dug them out, rinsed off the paste and cut them into pieces. I'm gonna throw them back into the paste and see if I can get more of some kind of reaction. But somehow I'm not feeling it.
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10 comments:

Kalin's Mommy said...

Aw, hope cutting it up works!

jalna said...

It kinda did, Mich, but I ended up cutting it even thinner this morning.

Kay said...

I didn't know about that bargain area at Marukai. We're going next week. I shall have to check it out. Thank you!

Honolulu Aunty said...

Hmmm. Maybe you only supposed to use a little at a time?

My mother used to make good pickled veggies. She would put them in a big bowl and add salt, old rice, and then put a big plate on top with a jar of water on top to press it down. After a day (or was it a few days?) the liquid from the veggies would come up and the pickling was done. Usually she used cabbage but sometime daikon, eggplant. If it was too salty, she would rinse and rinse, and then cut the cabbage up and we would eat it with shoyu - was yum!

We also had this plastic bottle with a screwing spring type plate that worked on the same principle as the weight on the plate. I tried to make but sometimes was good, sometimes was throw away. I sometimes used old burnt rice which gave it a better flavor but sometimes it would get moldy - yuck!

Here is my post about it from long time ago. http://honoluluaunty.com/ko-ko-simple-tsukemono/ Your post makes me want to try again.

jalna said...

Kay, good luck! Sometimes there are some good stuff for only 99 cents!

Aunty, my cucumber is still a bit salty. Maybe I'll rinse again. Interesting about using burnt rice. And talk about throw away . . . the eggplant I made is so gonna be thrown away.

Mark Shelby said...

Eggplant is a strange veggie. Although, it's called a very healthy wonder food. The thick skin was your problem Jalna.

It's very hard to eat. The taste is horrible as is the texture! My neighbor just told me that he fries them in oil on the stove and makes sliced parmesan eggplant. Now that might work.

The eggplant is very healthy for you.....though!

Health benefits of the Eggplant.

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=22

K and S said...

I watched a video online about these pickles(in Japanese). the 3 stands for ratio of salt, 5 is ratio of kouji starter and 8 the ratio of rice mash.
the guy stuck cucumbers in, in the morning, then ate them for dinner, so he only had them in for 8-9 hours?! he also said that if there is water coming out from your veggies, to stick in "fu"(dried gluten) or bread to soak up the water, the fu can be cooked then eaten afterwards...good luck:)

Erick said...

Looks ono! Too bad it was too salty.

jalna said...

Mark, my mom used to make a fried eggplant dipped in egg and breadcrumbs that I loved! This one came out as you say "horrible". I'll post a picture soon.

Thanks Kat! The cucumbers came out good in the end . . . the eggplant . . . baaaaaaaad.

Turned out okay after all, Erick.

Leslie's pics said...

hey not bad for guessing what the directions meant! I liked it!