Pickled vegetables are the most commonly side ingredients used in Sichuan cuisine. You may heard of Paojiao (泡椒) or Suan Cai（酸菜 ）in Chinese.
If you ever visited Sichuan province, you will find that there are many dishes calling for pickled chili pepper (Pao Jiao)as the main spicy ingredients such as shredded pork with pickled chili pepper, beef with chili pepper etc.Do you feel that they are quite far from you? In fact, No! You can make it at home with a very simple process and ingredients. The basic concept of picked vegetable is the same with other cuisines–use salt to pickle.
The most important part of picked vegetables is to prepare a good equipment. Generally earthen jar is the best choice but if you really cannot find one, you can use glass jar instead. I have one earthen jar and one glass jar.
There are many ingredients can be used to make pickled vegetables in Sichuan cuisine for example cucumber, fresh ginger, chili pepper and some other leaf vegetable. However, I do not recommend making all of those ingredients once but making other pickled vegetables after getting the basic salty water with only several types of original ingredients.
The following recipe is the basic instruction about how to make pickled chili peppers at home. After this, you can add more vegetables to make pickled vegetables. The tastes and flavor of the chili peppers will also be absorbed by other vegetables. Personally, I think this method is better than pickling vegetables separately in class jars.
One of the secret of making the pickled vegetables is to lay one layer of ingredients, then salt and Sichuan peppercorn. Repeat the process until all the ingredients are placed.
If you do not like the taste of thumb, then reduce the amount of Sichuan peppercorn used.
Sichuan Style Pickled Vegetables
- 2 lbs. water
- 10 oz. salt
- 1 lbs. chili red pepper , long chili red pepper; you can also replace it with green ones.
- 1 tbsp. Sichuan peppercorn
- 1 lbs. fresh ginger
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Wash your pickle jar carefully and then put aside to drain all the water.
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Wash all the ingredients carefully and then drain them thoroughly. There should be no water.
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Put the water in a large pan and heat the water to boiling. Then move away from fire to cool down naturally.
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Get the dried pickle jar, put one layer of chili pepper and tender ginger, add one layer of salt and sparkle some Sichuan peppercorns. Repeat again until all the peppers and gingers are placed.
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Pour cooled down water to pickle jar. Make sure that all the ingredients are soaked by water.
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Cover the lid and pour some water in the edge to prevent any air goes into the jar.
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Put the jar in a cool environment and wait for 7 days.
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Add other ingredients into the jar to make your own favorite pickled vegetables. You can add cabbage, green beans, cucumber and radishes.
Hi Elaine,
I have several questions about making pao jiao:
1. Why is it so important that there is no water on the vegetables?
2. Can I used bottled water instead of boiled water?
3. If I start to see white substance forming on the top after a few days, what does this mean?
4. When the pao jiao is finished, should I remove the peppers and ginger before adding other vegetables?
5. What is the longest period of time that the vegetables can stay in the pickling water, and still be good to eat?
6. Is it ok to boil the peppers before pickling them?
Hi Clint,
For you questions
1. The water might contain some germs which might cause the problem you mentions in question 3.
2. You need to make sure the bottled water is purified and free of bacteria. So I think boiled water is much safer.
3. The white substance is germ grown in the Jar(some of your ingredients might has some water). You need to remove them from the jar with a completely cleaned scoop and then add some hard wine liquor again.
4. There is no need to remove the pao jiao and ginger, get them out whenever you need to use.
5. It depends on what vegetables you are trying to pickle. For cabbage and cucumber , they can be kept up to around 10 days. But some vegetables like long green beans and radish, it can be as long as half a year.
6. There is no need to boil the peppers.
Besides, use clean tools when removing any ingredient from the jar and make sure that there is water in the jar edge slot.
Hi Elaine,
I have really enjoyed your blog and I will definitely try some of your pickled vegetable recipes! Clint, some white mold formation on the surface of the brine of lacto-fermented foods is quite normal. I would recommend you check out http://www.wildfermentation.com/ as they have lots of information and support for newbies. As Elaine said, you want to skim it off, and keep the food submerged in the brine, with a weight if need be. One of my favorite books that you both might enjoy is called The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Katz, as he explains the process in detail, with recipes from around the world. Elaine, you might want to share some of your traditional Sichuan ferment recipes to be included in future books/info!
Sincerely,
Casey
Thanks Casey for the useful information you provided since I am such a big fan of ferment foods and pickled vegetables! I will check it and hope to use some useful information and tips in my future pickled vegetables.
Hi Elaine,
Big fan!
Just wondering how to maintain this jar of pickled vegetables after a long period of time as I heard that it might go funny if not regularly attended to.
Hi Helen,
Try to keep the jar clean and in a shadow ventilation place. Make sure your tool is sterilized and free of water every time when you want to get some out. Besides, the water in the edge should be added to avoid drying out.
where to buy this jar in U.S?
Hi Vickie,
I am sorry that I do not know. You can search some local Chinese market. Or if this is too difficult to find, you can use class fermenting jar.
Can the regular red radish with white interior be used to make Szechwan ja choy? If not, what kind of vegetable would be best? Thanks.
Hi Michael,
I think red radish can work perfectly.
Thanks Elaine.
Can I use “lantern” chilis like Scotch bonnet/habanero, ghost pepper, Trinidad scorpions n Carolina reapers? ???
Romeo,
They should work for this recipe. But they may be much more spicy.
Thanks for the recipe! Very tasty. Do you know if these can be canned after fermenting?
Yes, they can be canned in absolutely air separated cans. But I recommend leaving them in the brine.
Thanks so much for following up! I think it makes sense to can them in the brine and will run an experiment soon.
Thank you very much for the recipe! May I know where you got your fermentation vessels?
It is very common in China. I believe it is also sold in Asian stores. The glass version is also sold by amazon.
Hi Elaine,
I’m looking forward to trying this recipe. I’m wondering what type of salt you used though. Type of salt can have a huge impact on thr final product. Thanks.
In Sichuan, we use local well salt for pickling directly. You can use pickle salt.