Do Chua - Pickled Daikon & Carrot

This Banh Mi ingredient can also be enjoyed alone or alongside other dishes!

Ingredients

1 cup carrots, julienne cut or ribbon-peeled
1 cup daikon radish, julienne cut or ribbon-peeled
1/2 cup white vinegar
1/2 cup unseasoned rice vinegar
1 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp Kosher salt

Directions

Place the sliced vegetables into a clean mason jar. On the stove, using a small pot on medium-high heat, bring the other ingredients to just boiling point, then pour the liquid over the vegetables in the mason jar making sure you fill it to the brim. Cool at room temperature and then cover and refrigerate until ready to use.
Apparently this needs to pickle for at least 1 hour, and up to 4 weeks (but we’ve never had it last that long!)

If you use daikon, it will start to develop a bit of an earthy smell, to put it diplomatically. 😉 Luckily I knew beforehand to expect this type of scent, but it can be a bit surprising the first time. It doesn’t mean it’s gone bad. When you open a jar you can let it air out for 15 min or so before serving, if desired.

My Notes

My first attempt used 2 cups of julienne cut carrots and it juuust fit into my mason jar. I julienned the carrots by hand, which was time-consuming!
For my second batch, I bought a daikon and a bag of carrots and used my food processor. If you chop the veg so it fits into the chute lengthwise, you can use the shredding/grating disc to get them into a reasonable enough substitute for julienne cut, and it’s a lot faster to prepare the veg this way. I just kept slicing the veg until it was all gone and I got about 12 cups of shredded veg this way. I filled 6 mason jars, and adjusted the above brine recipe to scale.
I also tried a few variations because I always have to mess with things: I tried 1 tablespoon of fresh grated ginger and it was fiery and sort of hard to pair with other foods. Another jar had 1 clove of minced fresh garlic, it was nice and not overpowering (but then, we love garlic!). Another jar had about 1 tablespoon of yellow mustard seeds — we haven’t tried that batch yet. For the last 2 jars, I’d run out of rice vinegar so I used Apple Cider Vinegar instead since some website said it was an OK substitute — we haven’t tried that batch yet, either.

Alternate Recipe

Another recipe I found seems a bit quicker as it doesn’t need the stove, so I’ll try that next:

227 grams (1/2 lb) carrots – julienned
227 grams (1/2 lb) daikon radish, cut to match the carrots
1 litre (4 cups) water, warm enough to dissolve the salt and sugar
45 ml (3 tablespoons) sugar
30 ml (2 tablespoons) salt
120 ml – 180 ml (1/2 cup to 3/4 cup) white or rice vinegar (Start with 1/2 cup and add more if desired!)