This is a dish requested by our lovely Miriam :)
I love anything sweet and sour, and jang ah jji is a perfect example. It refreshes your palate in between heavy meaty bites. Jang ah jji is a side dish (ban chan 반찬) that can be stored up to a year.
You can pickle pretty much any kinds of vegetables. I’m using radish, onion, celery and jalapeno pepper but feel free to add garlic, cucumber, carrot, chayote, sesame leaves or any other vegetables.
*Disclaimer*
Soy sauce smells bad when you boil. I warned you in advance!
I may be biased to use Soju for everything in my dish, but you can substitute with vodka or simply water.
Difficulty: Easy
Total Time: 20 minutes prep time + ready to consume in 3 days
Main Ingredients
½ radish
½ onion
1 stalk of celery
1 jalapeno pepper
1 glass bottle (32oz = 4 cups)
an object with weight (fist sized stone)
Seasoning
1 cup soy sauce
1 cup vinegar
1 cup sugar
(optional: 1/4 cup soju)
Preparation
Vegetables – Cut into desired bite size and pack them up in the glass bottle (or a stainless bowl in the picture).
Cooking
1. In a pot, add soy sauce, vinegar, sugar (and soju) and bring it up to a boil. Use distilled vinegar without flavor (no cooking wine or apple vinegar). Watch out your pot as it comes to a boil because it may overflow all of sudden – I use a larger pot to avoid the overflow.
2. When the seasoning starts boiling, turn it off and pour it over the vegetables. Make sure all vegetables are under the hot liquid – use the heavy object to weigh them down. I didn’t have anything like stone-like so used the left over piece of radish.
3. Leave it outside in a room temperature for a day and then relocate to fridge. You can start eating in 3 days. Store in the fridge and you can keep it for a year!
