It's increasingly hard to put my thoughts together, which is very scary since I'm applying for a graduate program here in Indiana. HELP! But the raw truth about that is that it is so debilitating to me as a person. I can't string coherent sentences without..


sorry, spacing or blanking out, I can't have decent, meaningful conversations with other people without resorting to the words "you know?" (know, they don't), "I don't know how to explain it," (evidently), or "it's sort of like.." (really, it isn't, and you're only just confusing them further).

It's also become so much harder for me to concentrate on any one thing at one time, blogging included. I just want to scream!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But today I felt like I needed to be productive. I was also cautious about being too ambitious-- we all know how those days go-- so I decided to just do something small. Something creative, cost-effective, yummy, and small (yummy is bolded because if it ain't yummy, it ain't worth it). I decided to do some vietnamese refrigerator pickles. Have you had Vietnamese cuisine? Oh, you MUST try it.. It's out of this world. And if you have (aside from Pho, duh (get it, it rhymes OH i'm on a roll here ladies!)) you've almost certainly had these garnish-like things called Do Chua.

 

(image credits: http://www.teaandcookiesblog.com/2008/12/pickled-stuff.html) 

And if you are like me, you would have researched on at least 5 different do chua recipes to ascertain the best, most delicious, most fool-proof recipe, and then cited them all (here, here, here, here and here), and then given up because you can't choose one to just freakin' follow! So stop hyperventilating and listen, honey, to the words of my sagacious wisdom. Do chua will vary in taste from maker to maker. What is really important is that you balance the tastes to your desire. Know that there are really only 4 ingredients to your brining solution: 

Hot water

Vinegar

Sugar

Salt 

And then your veggies. A typical do chua as I've had it in Vietnam, had more daikon than carrots; in fact, the carrots seemed to play the sole part of providing color contrast. The daikon was the primary root. That means that you can play around with the ratios of carrots to daikon. In fact, you'll see below that my do chua doesn't even look like it has any daikon in it.. 

You're right. See, I was at Kroger on my way home and I noticed these bags of broccoli and carrot slaw on sale. They looked kinda dry, but still edible, so I picked up a couple of bags with the purpose of trying out this recipe and making a salad for dinner. Guess what? BINGO. The texture of the broccoli stem was very similar to daikon, and oh man, thank goodness I wouldn't have to julienne all those freakin' carrots and daikons into matchsticks! To me, personally, the thickness of each piece matters. I HATE how some restaurants give you thick, ugly stems.. It just doesn't represent Vietnamese food well, what with the emphasis on a balance of tastes, textures, presentation, temperatures.. Ok, I'm going to stop rambling now. Now you get what I mean about my issues putting an entry together? Very trying.

So. In 5 sentences: combine all the brining ingredients together in a glass jar/bowl, stir until homogenous and taste it. Detect the sweet, the sour and some saltiness to it-- if something is amiss, add a little more here and there until you are satisfied. I used about 1/2 cup of vinegar to 1 cup water to 1 tsp salt to 4 tbs sugar. Don't worry! If it doesn't taste right, you can always fix it later.

Another 5 sentences: Put some groovy music on and whip out your bottle of patience/vodka-- you're gonna need it if you're julienning all these veggies. Or else, cheat and get a bag of that slaw like meeeee! How much veggies to chop up? Well, as much as you'd like to have! The bag I used was 10 ounces total and fit perfectly into one quart-sized mason jar. 

Last 5 sentences: Stuff the julienned veggies in the jar, top off with the brining solution-- the proportions above should fit nicely into a quart-sized mason jar. Not enough solution? Make some more! Use a glass container instead of plastic due to the acidic nature of the solution. Some recipes suggest a 10 minute brining time before consuming, others say 3 days, and personally I think it depends on your needs and preferences and thickness of the julienned veggies, but whatever the case, store in the fridge and enjoy!

Did you really count to see if I made the self-imposed sentence limit? Well, then, you're just neurotic.