Caroline wants pickling advice and I’m afraid to tell her I don’t know a thing. I mean, I know a lot right? I know everything. But I’m too lazy to do much more than put more vegetables in the turnip pickle juice when the turnips start to run out. Sliced white onions are good for that. So are green tomatoes. Sliced or whole. Then you can put them on sandwiches. Mmmm. Sometimes I put carrots in, which don’t go well on sandwiches and are better fresh anyway. After a few rounds of onions the brine starts to get funky and I dump it.

This week, though, I made a batch of Korean turnip pickles, that came out pretty great in a garlic skunk kind of a way. Hsuan offered a book of simple Japanese pickles (which she still hasn’t delivered. I gave her some pickled turnip today to help her remember …) which got me thinking that Madhur Jaffrey would probably have some useful advice. I had to adapt a little, since I don’t have any dried Korean chilies and I couldn’t find scallions and I wanted to pickle a lot more than three small turnips.

Note: I think preserving things is one of those adventures that can lead to botulism, so, um … you know. Think for yourself here. Look up a recipe. When in doubt, throw it out.

I started with 4 or 5 really really big turnips, which I sliced about a quarter inch thick, sprinkled lightly with salt, and let sit for a few hours in a glass bowl. I gather that glass is important if you don’t want rust and funky reactions going on. I rinsed and rinsed and chopped up two monster cloves of garlic (I’m thinking now that one would have done it) and one small white onion and one nice hot chili. I don’t remember what variety it was, it was from the green market and it was super spicy. Only you know how spicy you like your pickles. I added ~2tsp of salt and a tsp of sugar and stirred it all around and added enough water to cover the whole business in a glass jar. I added three or four impossibly small beets because pink pickles rule and what else are you going to do with three or four impossibly small beets?

Rest a saucer loosely on top. It was supposed to sit for 6-8 days but I put a real lid on it and stuck it in the fridge on day 5, for no good reason. I had them in my lunch today. Like I said, I think one clove of garlic would have done it–I won’t be getting any mosquito bites tonight!