This picture is just so bright and sunny… This is a super easy fermented pickle of beautiful vegetables I got from the fall farmers market, and it follows my basic method for easy ferments.
In this jar:
- One bunch of French breakfast radishes, washed and scrubbed really well. I chopped the greens (on the bottom) and sliced the radishes in half lengthwise. If you buy fresh radishes like this, eat them or pickle them as soon as possible. The longer you let radishes sit, the more biting they become.
- On top it’s four good-sized carrots. I’m a devotee of the carrots from Tomatero Farm and now Happy Boy Farm, too. I forget the name of the variety, but they are so sweet and so fresh, you don’t even need to peel them. I buy five pounds or more at a time. It is a punishment to ever have to eat any other inferior carrot.
- Roughly-chopped daikon radish. Daikon is one of my favorite vegetables on earth. It is so insanely versatile; it’s the Meryl Streep of vegetables (ha!). Raw, it can be chunked or shredded, and it’s crisp, light, and refreshing. It’s delicious boiled in soup or fried into cakes. I also slice it thin, dry it in the oven, and then make a long-lasting bright, bold preserved jerky out of it that is to die for. It is equally excellent pickled sweet with or honey or super spicy and garlicky. Plays nicely with vinegar brines and ferments. There’s nothing not to love about daikon.
- I had a handful of small Persian cucumbers, so I trimmed the ends to prevent any softening of the vegetables, and those little cuties in for good measure.
For the brine, I mixed together my usual fermentation solution – 4 cups of water with 1/4 cup kosher salt – and poured it over the top to make sure all of the vegetables were covered completely.
While it’s totally fine to just weight the vegetables to keep them submerged under the brine for a week or more, just for fun I attached my fermenting airlock. Note, however, that you don’t have to if you don’t have one. Just be sure the keep all the vegetable well submerged the entire time.
All of this took about 10 minutes to prep all of the vegetables, but it will need to sit for at least a week to get a good fermentation on it. I usually let my ferments sit three weeks or more. Enjoy!
I love this colorful mix and I’m just starting to get into daikon radish. You made me want to experiment more with them! Is this in a gallon jar?
Hooray! Mission accomplished! :> I really love daikon, it’s funky smell and all. That’s not quite a gallon jar, but larger than a half-gallon. It’s a metric size…i think i got it from IKEA. Happy pickling!
Re: your fast fermented pickle method. Will beets work, and beet greens? Long beans, or other beans? Thank you. Max Urata
Beets, beet greens, and long beans would certainly work. Happy pickling, Max!