Pickled Radishes?

[myrrhmade]

A few days ago I tried to make my first pickled anything, which were radishes because I grew far too many of them. I tried this easy recipe from Epicurious and while they were ok, they were too sweet, and not salty and sour enough for me. Does anyone have a fool-proof recipe they like for salty sour pickled stuff? Am I using the wrong kind of

Comments

[smurfetts_lamb]

I always taste my pickling juice before I add my veges. I like my carrots spicy, my cucumbers slightly sweet, and my onions sour so I have to taste each time.

Taste the juice now, is it sweet or just the radishes. If the juice taste right then just let the radishes sit longer in the fridge. If not then you need to add more salt less sugar next time.

[myrrhmade]

Good advice, thank you!

[spaceprostitute]

Honestly, 1 tsp. of sugar shouldn't make that big of difference, particularly to 2 c. of vinegar. My default basic refrigerator pickle recipe (which is more bread and butter style sweet pickles) calls for 1.75 c. sugar to 1 c. vinegar. You could up the salt and reduce the sugar. Those proportions seem quite a bit off to me anyway in the Epicurious recipe. For non-bread and butter pickles, I usually see at least a small amount of sugar (but sometimes left out altogether) and usually see at least a minimum of one tablespoon of salt to one cup of vinegar. Also, that recipe seems a bit...bland to me. I almost always throw in at least a teaspoon of whole mustard seed, sometimes some dill seed, celery seed, or red pepper flakes, depending on the flavor profile I'm going for, and sometimes some Penzey's pickling spice (the amounts I'm citing would be for about one cup of vinegar, which usually covers about six small cucumbers, one medium carrot, and two small onions all thinly sliced. Two cups of vinegar seems a bit much for just 10

[myrrhmade]

I did not taste the pickling juice, but thanks to you, now I know to do it. Also, I love Penzeys, so I'll be ordering their blend asap.

My radishes were pretty hot and peppery, but the sugar sort of overpowered that. It makes sense to me that the recipe was bland (as well as too sweet). I can work on that. =)

[full_metal_ox]

Neither vinegar nor sugar is a necessary ingredient for pickles; here's a funky, salty, and spicy Korean radish pickle whose agents are soy sauce, fish sauce, and spices: http://www.fermentersclub.com/radish-kimchi/

Although the recipe refers to daikon, the default Korean radish (or daikon or turnip--there seems to be no consistent English translation, and the brassica family tree is a convoluted banyan anyway) is a related stubby green-and white root called mu. Of course, trying the above recipe with small red Western-style radishes could be an interesting transposition.

[myrrhmade]

Wow! Thank you! This looks amazing... my best friend's dad used to make his own Kimchi and this sort of reminds me of it.