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I  love raw white cabbage and often made a quick salad by adding just salt, pepper, lemon and sugar to it. I usually add the spices into the cabbage and serve it with our meal. I saw a Japanese program where they were discussing how good pickled and fermented food for us.  They were pickling vegetables such as cucumber, beans, cabbage by adding salt to it. They serve the pickles as a side dish called Tsukemono. Tsukemono translates to “pickled things”. I read in this article that during a meal, Tsukemono cleanses the palate and provides refreshments to counter the other flavorful dishes. It also offers color, texture, and fragrance to a meal.  This sounds very much like us Gujarati’s serving pickles, raitas, papads etc. with our meals to balance the flavours of the  food we serve in a thali.  It also helps to cleanse the pallate before trying another dish from our thali.   Today, I used this recipe to create my dish of Japanese pickled cabbage.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of grated white cabbage
• 1 green or red chili chopped finely
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tsp sesame seeds
• 1 tbls soy sauce
• some pepper (optional)

Method

1.  Wash and finely slice the cabbage and chilies and transfer them to a strong plastic bag and add the salt.  Rub the bag well so that the salt coats the cabbage and chillies.

2.  Put some weight on the bag and leave it for an hour.  After an hour, strain out all the liquid formed by pressing the cabbage by hand or in a sieve.  Transfer the cabbage to a small serving bowl.  Add some sesame seeds and soy sauce and serve it fresh. I also sprinkled some pepper as garnishing.

3.  Serve this quick pickled salad with any main meal.

Extra info: You may find this article on pickles interesting.

Print Recipe

Pickled Cabbage – Japanese style

I  love raw white cabbage and often made a quick salad by adding just salt, pepper, lemon and sugar to it. I usually add the spices into the cabbage and serve it with our meal. I saw a Japanese program where they were discussing how good pickled and fermented food for us.  They were pickling vegetables such as cucumber, beans, cabbage by adding salt to it. They serve the pickles as a side dish called Tsukemono. Tsukemono translates to “pickled things”. I read in this article that during a meal, Tsukemono cleanses the palate and provides refreshments to counter the other flavorful dishes. It also offers color, texture, and fragrance to a meal.  This sounds very much like us Gujarati’s serving pickles, raitas, papads etc. with our meals to balance the flavours of the  food we serve in a thali.  It also helps to cleanse the pallate before trying another dish from our thali.   Today, I used this recipe to create my version of Japanese pickled cabbage.

Course: condiment

Cuisine: Indian, Japanese

Keyword: pickle, salad

Servings: 2

Author: Mina Joshi

Ingredients

• 2 cups of grated white cabbage
• 1 green or red chili chopped finely
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tsp sesame seeds
• 1 tbls soy sauce
• some pepper (optional)

Instructions

• Wash and finely slice the cabbage and chilies and transfer them to a strong plastic bag and add the salt.  Rub the bag well so that the salt coats the cabbage and chilies.
• Put some weight on the bag and leave it for an hour.  After an hour, strain out all the liquid formed by pressing the cabbage by hand or in a sieve.  Transfer the cabbage to a small serving bowl.  Add some sesame seeds and soy sauce and serve it fresh. I also sprinkled some pepper as garnishing.
• Serve this salad with any main meal.

Fresh green cabbage can also be used to make:

• Sambharo – Recipe here
• cabbage and potato curry- Recipe here.
• Cabbage and new potatoes curry with onions . Recipe here
• Have tried our ginger and lemon pickle? The recipe is here.
• You may wish to try this carrot and green chili pickle called raita gajar marcha.  Recipe here

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