Oshinko!

Hello All! This is my very first cooking blog post about creative cooking/food preparation, specializing on unique meals for challenging dietary needs/chronic health conditions.  While I myself am cursed with interstitial cystitis (a disease I would not wish on my worst nemesis), chronic allergies, and IBS, it has been a blessing in terms of leveling up my cooking skills dramatically (as the list of what I could tolerate eating was getting seemingly smaller and smaller!).  At current, I am gluten-free, low-acidity, and now dairy-free.  Too many hyphens, if you ask me, and a challenge in terms of a. What to eat? b. How can I make the limited foods I can eat NOT suck?

The other day, I was craving something acidic.  We all crave things we cannot have.  It wasn't worth getting an ulcer to fulfill this craving, so I did some research to find a less-acidic, milder-yet-still-awesome form of pickling.

Oshinko= authentic Japanese pressed pickles.  There are a wide variety of recipes, some more difficult to make successfully than others.  I will give you guys the easy version for starters.  The first pic is the set-up for the 2-3 day period it takes to pickle the vegetables:

Ingredients & Preparation: 

• 1 c radishes (just the radishes themselves, no stem/leaves/stuff)
• 1 c English cucumber or mini cucumbers work as well
• 4 TBP good-quality salt (non-iodized!)
• 2-3 TBP rice wine vinegar (realize that you can make them milder/stronger...)
• optional 1-2 TBP of vermouth/very dry white wine/or keep it real with some sake
• sesame seeds (to garnish with)

• Cut thin slices of the washed radishes and cucumbers, put them in a wide circular glass bowl
• Add the salt, rice wine vinegar, and optional vermouth/dry white wine/and/or sake
• Mix it together well to make sure the vegetables are all covered in the simple brine
• Cover the mix itself with plastic wrap
• Place a plate that fits just inside the glass bowl on top of the plastic-covered mix (it serves to press the mix down within the open glass bowl)
• Place something heavy on top of the plate/or lid (you can use a water-filled ziplock bag, a heavy bottle of water, a heavy can of beans, whatever will do the job) to start the pickling process.
• Every once in a while (that's vague, I did this 1-2 times a day) empty the fluid that accumulates from the glass bowl, once that is done, replace the lid/plate and heavy thing on top.
• In 2-3 days this Oshinko is ready to eat!! (you can eat it sooner, totally up to you); you can transfer to a glass jar/storage container, and add sesame seeds to the mix for garnish.
• If room temperature where you are is 80 degrees or over, you'll need to find a cooler place to pickle this stuff so it will not spoil! Once the 2-3 day period is up, and the Oshinko is ready, store in the fridge, and eat within 7-10 days.