Pickled Mustard Greens 酸菜
Easy Pickled Mustard Greens 酸菜 recipe. Goes perfectly with noodles, rice or congee. Try it with my Taiwanese Beef Noodle recipe.
Ingredients
Ingredients to make 3.3kg of pickled mustard greens
- 4.5 kg Pickled mustard greens
- 167 g Course sea salt
- 33 g Rock sugar (cane)
- 600 ml Rice water
- 4.8 litre Glass jar and a clean rock, plate or bowl that can be used as weight inside the jar to prevent the vegetables from floating above the water
- 1 pair Plastic gloves for food preparation
Instructions
- Estimate the amount of rice water you’ll need and start saving it for pickling. The rice water can last a few days if you boil it, let it cool and store in the fridge. If you don’t have enough, you can always make some with some rice flour
See notes below for how to make rice water - Clean vegetables by using a dry towel. Have a bowl of cooled boiled water on hand in case you need to use some water to clean off dirt. At the same time, remove the flower buds and yellow leaves from the vegetables.
Flower buds on vegetables are said to be nesting grounds for insects 
- After cleaning and culling the vegetables, weigh them to calculate how much salt and sugar you need
- Use all of the rice water you saved to melt the rock sugar. Let cool and set aside. If you're not adding the rock sugar, you will still need to bring the rice water to a boil and let it cool
- Boil around 2 litres of water in a pot. When the water is boiling, place the vegetable in the pot one head at a time, putting the head first and then leaves. Remove after 4-5 seconds or when the vegetable changes to a bright green colour. Continue until all vegetables have been processed. Water must be at a rolling boil when you put the vegetables in
This process helps to sterilize the vegetables 
- Line the vegetables in a tray and sprinkle the salt evenly onto all the vegetables
- Put on plastic gloves and rub the sprinkled salt into the inside of the vegetable. Rub onto all the leaves and stems as much as possible. Continue for all the vegetables
- Line the vegetables into the jar
- Pour the cooled rice water into the jar until the liquid covers the top of the vegetables
- Weigh the vegetables down with a plate or bowl. Close the jar
- Keep the jar at room temperature away from direct sunlight for 20 days It will be edible after around 6 days, but fermenting for 20 days will allow the lacto-fermentation process to reach its potential
- After 20 days, remove the pickled mustard greens from the jar, discard the liquids and rinse the pickled mustard greens with water then pat dry with paper towels. You can use them immediately or store in the fridge in a ziploc bag for up to 3 months.
- You can chop them up, add sesame oil and some chilis to make a side dish; add them to soup; or add to a stir-fry dish.
Notes
For this recipe, since everyone will likely make varying amounts depending on the size of the container and the amount of pickled mustard greens you want to make, I will give you ratios as well as the measurements that I used to make 3.3kg of mustard greens.
Some ratios and notes before we begin:
- Do not wash or submerse vegetables in non-cooked (boiled) water. This is a traditional rule that has been passed down for generations. I suspect it’s to prevent bacteria from the water from infiltrating the vegetables and endangering the fermentation process. I don’t think this is as relevant nowadays since most water sources are chlorinated. However, I try to follow with this traditional rule since I could be wrong! If the vegetables are very dirty and you feel you must wash them, then they need to be dried before fermenting.
- For every 100g of vegetable, use 5g of salt and 1g of sugar. Sugar is optional. The sugar must be first melted in boiling water before adding to the vegetables
- The rice water mixture used to submerse the vegetables in must also be cooked. Two methods of making rice water:
- Use cooled boiled water to wash your rice and save the water. The amount of water used should be the same weight as the rice (for example, 2 rice cooker cups of rice weighs approx. 290g, so use 290ml of water) You can use any type of rice. note: 1ml water=1g water
- Use rice flour and water mixture. For every 20g of rice or glutinous rice flour, add 80g of water. The rice flour must be toasted in a pan, no oil needed, until golden colour. The water should also be boiled and cooled before combining with the toasted rice flour
Nutrition
Calories: 49kcalCarbohydrates: 10gProtein: 2gFat: 1gSaturated Fat: 1gSodium: 2574mgPotassium: 1280mgFiber: 5gSugar: 3gVitamin A: 284IUVitamin C: 1mgCalcium: 74mgIron: 1mg
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!