Quite literally, đồ chua means “sour stuff” — or Vietnamese pickles, in this case. It was a staple in my parents’ house while growing up, and eventually became a staple in my own grown-up house. It’s a very Vietnamese thing and reminds me of all the wonderful home cooking from my childhood. I can eat [...]
preserving
Every season, I let a few of my radish plants flower and seed. Some I leave to collect seed for next season, and some I leave to harvest the pods. Amid this tangled mess of vines is a handful of daikon radish plants — plants that had grown over 4 feet tall, full of little [...]
Sometimes, you just don’t have time to wait around for your pickles to pickle before you can eat them. For those times, there’s quick pickles. Well, quick enough, anyway… These are my favorite quick pickles to make — deliciously tangy in just a few hours and scrumptiously served with the barbecue platter of your choice. [...]
Here in Los Angeles, nasturtiums are wildly weedy, growing all over hillsides and gardens and reseeding with wanton abandon. This weediness makes them very underappreciated as a bona fide vegetable, and even moreso as a pickled delicacy. While much of the country doesn’t see the seed pods until late summer (when intense heat causes nasturtiums [...]
So after eating apples for a week and barely making a dent in my U-pick bushel, it was time to get serious about them. I needed to reduce my mountain of apples into something I could savor long into the season, but not doctor up with a mountain of sugar. Hello, apple butter. Apple butter [...]
No, we’re not actually pickling bread and butter of any kind. This classic pickling recipe is so named because back in the olden days when times were tough, the sweet and sour pickles were tucked between two slices of buttered bread to make a hearty sandwich. And you know what? It’s quite delicious! I like [...]
After an abundant summer, my bush beans have finally bitten the dirt. I harvested the last of the beans — all 15 pounds of my Dragon Tongue, Royal Burgundy, and Beurre de Rocquencourt varieties — and after many three bean summer salads, spicy stir-fried beans, grilled beans, braised beans, and buttery bean casseroles, there’s only [...]
