pickles à la minute

Grub Street at NY Mag has a great section called The Annotated Dish. This week's feature on Le Bernardin’s surf and turf (Kobe steak and grilled escolar), includes a Kimchee à la minute which is a single leaf of Napa cabbage marinated in korean barbeque sauce. I love to quick pickle things, and my latest experiments involve both baby cucumbers and Napa cabbage. Here's the process, which is the same for whatever you'd like to pickle, as long as it has a relatively high water content (so it can equilibrate with the salinity of the pickling liquid . . . or something like that):

1. wash your vegetables in cold water, and put them in a Mason jar

2. cover them with cold water

3. add some white vinegar (or for a more subtle flavor, use rice wine vinegar); it's hard to know how much to add, and it's up to your taste, but if ~5% of the total volume of the liquid is vinegar, that's probably a good start.

4. Add a couple large tablespoons of salt.

5. Cut a few very thin slices of garlic, ginger, and red onion, and add these.

6. Add a teaspoon of fresh lemon juice.

7. Tast the liquid at this point; dilute it if it's too salty or vinegary, or add more of whatever you think is missing.

8. Invert it a few times to mix everything, and place in the refrigerator.

You can eat these a soon as after a few hours, and it only gets better with time. After about a week or more there will be a special tanginess which will remind your palate how fresh and "à la minute" these pickles are.