A traditional Japanese technique of fermenting fresh variety of vegetables using toasted rice bran, water, and salt.
Nukazuke
A traditional Japanese technique of fermenting fresh variety of vegetables using toasted rice bran, water, and salt.
Ingredients
- Toasted rice bran (nukadoko) Can be found at local Asian markets or online
- Water
- Kosher salt Avoid using table (iodized) salt. V
- Any variety of root vegetables
Instructions
Prepping:
- Mix rice bran with salt using 15% salt to 100% bran ratio, i.e., 100g of bran plus 15g of salt for a combined weight of 115g. Slowly add water until the mixture has the consistency of wet sand.
- Pour the mixture into the fermentation pot and bury washed scrap vegetables – carrot roots or broccoli stems – in the mixture.
- The next step is optional, but to infuse additional flavors, add some dried kombu seaweed and red chilies as well.
- Finally packed the mixture down tightly to make sure that there is no air gap, and all the scrap veggies are covered.
Fermenting:
- Similar to making the leavening for bread making, the fresh mixture of salted rice bran, nuka-bed, needs to have lactic acid-producing colonies developed. This is done by hand mixing everything thoroughly every day. After 3-4 days, remove the scrap veggies and add in a new batch of fresh scrap veggies. Repeat this process for about 2-3 weeks, until a fermenting culture has been established. This happens when the mixture has a pleasant sour smell, and the scrap veggies are no longer salty when sample.
- After nuka-bed is fermented, it is now ready to pickle veggies.
- For large veggies like daikon radishes, turnips, or carrots, the pickling time is about 4-5 days.
- For smaller veggies like Japanese cucumbers or red radishes or baby carrots, he pickling time is about 2-3 days.
