Shiozuke. To drain or not to drain

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that enjoys cooking.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

JustJoel

Executive Chef
Joined
Sep 6, 2017
Messages
3,665
Location
Las Vegas
Shiozuke is a type of Japanese pickle, the easiest to make. It’s basically vegetables sliced and heavily salted, then pressed overnight. The salt is rinsed off, and you’re left with limp but crunchy veggies with very concentrated taste. The most common salt pickle veggies are Napa cabbage, cucumbers, daikon and radishes, and eggplant

My dilemma is that some instructions call for the brine to be drained at intervals, and some instructions don’t mention draining at all. Is it an either/or thing, or is one method generally recommended over the other?

And I’ll slip in an auxiliary question: some recipes (for the same type of pickles) call for leaving the pickles out overnight, and some call for them to rest in the fridge. Just different roads to the same destination?
 
I still have my mother's old press she used to make this. I remember her not draining, but using that same liquid in the press to make multiple batches of tsukemono/shiozuke.
Did your grandmother refrigerate her pickles, or leave them to ferment at room temp, do you remember?
 
Just out of curiosity, did you try making these ? If so, how did they come out ? If they came out well, what did you do or which recipe did you follow to make them come out well :)

Cucumbers are ripe and Im looking for things to do with them other than traditional pickles and cucumber salad.
 
Just out of curiosity, did you try making these ? If so, how did they come out ? If they came out well, what did you do or which recipe did you follow to make them come out well :)

Cucumbers are ripe and Im looking for things to do with them other than traditional pickles and cucumber salad.
I haven’t gotten around to it yet. One day, one day.
 
Back
Top Bottom