In Japan the pickle press is called a tsukemonoki, meaning a vessel for pickled things. Pickling is done by rubbing the ingredients with salt and applying pressure to squeeze out excess liquid, leaving the vegetables with a delicious crunch and tang.
Eaten as a side dish, garnish or snack during a sake drinking session, Japanese pickles are addictive and also good for you. You can experiment with different dressings, the combinations of soy, rice wine, sesame oil, ginger or lemon juice (or Yuzu Juice as the Japanese use) is superb. You can even use sushi rice vinegar as it is essentially rice wine with sugar added, and most dressing recipes use rice wine and sugar mixed together separately.
To start with something easy, here is a crazy delicious cucumber pickle recipe with soy, sesame oil, ginger, chilli and rice wine vinegar dressing, topped with roasted sesame seeds. Once you start picking you wont be able to stop…
Find the recipe here: http://foodforaking.com/japanese-pickles/
