Vietnamese food for me is all about balance. Sometimes when I eat something oily like fried fish or foods, or even something with pork belly, all I really want is a good crunchy pickle of some sort. The Vietnamese answer to this is dua chua. Dua chua is a pickled mustard green. It’s much more subtle than the American pickle or the fermented Korean varieties, but because it’s subtle, it goes well with any meal time. The pickled mustards at the Asian groceries are super sour, salty, and delicious, but they’re also packed with preservatives and artificial food dyes. Some people are okay with that, but I found that to be the perfect reason to create this at home for my family instead. It’s cheap and simple to make yourself, so why not right?
Ingredients:
– Mustard Greens. These are the big mustards make sure you get the right ones at your Asian grocery store! Before being pickled, they’re quite bitter in taste.
– Kosher Salt
– Sugar (dark brown & regular sugar)
Steps:
1. Wash your mustard greens, separate the leaves, and let air dry on your counter overnight. I used around 8lbs of mustard greens for this recipe. If you’d like, you can also cut up your mustards as well.
2. Bring a large pot of water to a boil (around 13 cups of water)
3. Boil your mustards in batches (1 minute each batch in the boiling water) and set aside to drain.
4. Once your mustards have cooled, massage them a bit, and let them air dry.
5. With the water you used to boil your greens, remove about 1 cup of water. Add 1/2 a cup dark brown sugar and 1/4 or 1/3 cup of regular sugar. Add a 1 and 1/2 cup vinegar and 4 tablespoons of kosher salt. Mix until dissolved. Set aside to cool.
6. When the brine mixtures cooled, add your mustard greens and brine into a sterile container.
7. Seal the container with plastic wrap before your cap it off and let it sit at room temp for at least 3 days.
Note: I pushed the mustards down every day to re-submerge the top layer of mustards, but if you have a heavy weighted item to push down the mustards, you can save yourself some trouble.
Trackbacks/Pingbacks