Tsukemono are Japanese pickles made with a variety of vegetables and preserved in salt, brine, vinegar, soy sauce, miso, rice bran, or sake lees. Popular types include umeboshi, takuan, nukazuke, and gari. Asazuke is a quick pickling method that retains the fresh taste of vegetables.
A tsukemono is a Japanese pickle, literally a “pickled thing”. In Japanese cuisine, tsukemono can be served as a snack with rice or as a side dish, side dish, or appetizer. Japanese pickles are commonly pickled in salt or brine, although they can also be preserved in vinegar, soy sauce, miso, rice bran, or sake lees. There is also a great variety in the vegetables used to make tsukemono. Some of the more popular ones are ginger, daikon radish, cucumber, eggplant, lotus root, turnip, ume plum, and bok choy.
Japanese pickles are available in supermarkets, but many people still make their own in a tsukemonoki or pickle press. Basically, tsukemono are made by salting vegetables and applying pressure, usually with stone or metal weights. Before the invention of the tsukemonoki, the necessary pressure was often created by driving a wedge between the handle and the lid of a container that held pickling vegetables.
Pickled ume plums are called umeboshi when dried and umezuki when undried. They are very salty and acidic, and were known for eating out of aluminum lunch boxes popular in the 1960s. Umeboshi is believed to aid digestion, prevent nausea and fatigue, and prohibit the growth of bacteria when placed on rice. Modern umeboshi are often dyed red and sometimes sweetened with honey. They are also often made with vinegar instead of the traditional salt pickling method.
Tsukemono made with daikon radish are called takuan or takuan-zuke. This type of Japanese pickle is also believed to aid digestion and is traditionally served after a meal. Another type of pickled daikon is called bettarazuke. It is sweeter and stickier than takuan, because the koji mushroom created by the pickling process is not filtered.
Rice bran-based pickles are called nukazuke and rely on lactic acid from lactobacilli and natural yeast cultures to ferment and preserve the vegetables. Unlike other types of tsukemono, nukazuke retain their freshness. Crispy pickles flavored with soy sauce are called fukujinzuke.
Pickles made from sake lees are called kasuzuke. This pickling method is used with both vegetables and fish. Nukazuke made with mustard is called karashizuke.
The pickled ginger commonly served with sushi as a palate cleanser is called gari. It is intended to be eaten between different types of sushi so that the tastes of the sushi do not influence each other. Another popular type of ginger pickle is beni shoga.
Asazuke is a quick pickling method, popular for home use, which retains more of the fresh vegetable’s taste than other methods. Asazuke is made by rubbing fresh cut vegetables with salt and placing them in a bag or sealed container with spices. The pickles are ready within 30 minutes to a few hours. Asazuke can also be made with vinegar or store-bought pickling solution.
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