Japanese Pickles (asazuke) by Sammy

What I usually make is called "asazuke" which means "shallow pickling." This means it can be eaten even after just half-a-day of pickling, and it's not as salty as regular Japanese pickles so you can eat lots of it almost like a salad.

It helps if you have a container like this to press the vegetable down while pickling, but as long as you have some kind of weight on it (a big stone?), it'll do.

So. You just cut up the vegetable you want to pickle -- Japanese turnip (sliced thin), cucumber (chopped in chunks), carrot (sliced thin), and cabbage are good ones to start with -- and place them in a container. If using a container size like what I linked to, you mix in about 1.5 teaspoons of salt -- mix well -- and about 1 tbsp sugar, 2 tbsp vinegar, some chopped ginger, 1 whole chili pepper (small one), and you're done. If you have access to it, you can also add kombu , cut in 2x2 inch squares to the mix. (Sometimes kombu has this white powdery stuff on it. If so, wipe it off with vinegar before adding it into your pickle mix.) Done.