I found this carrot pickle recipe on chow.com originally, but it was way too sweet. After adjusting the ingredients I discovered it was the same pickling proportion used by David Chang in the Momofuku cookbook. If you want to mess with people, strain out and remove the seaweed and seeds before serving. They’ll go crazy wondering what the “secret ingredient” is.
Carrot Pickle for Dave Chang
Ingredients:
1 pound of carrots, peeled and thin sliced with mandoline
1/2 c sugar
1/2 c rice vinegar
1 c water
2 T kosher salt
1 medium piece of kombu*
1 1/2 t caraway seeds
Method: Put everything except carrots into a saucepan, stir to dissolve sugar and heat to boil. Cool to room temperature (make sure seaweed is fully soaked and softened) then pour over carrots. Refrigerate at least 24 hours for serving. Keeps for up to a month.
*Kombo is the big flat kind of seaweed that is too tough and rubbery to munch on. You should be able to find it dried in any market that sells basic Asian ingredients. Just break off a good sized piece or two to use in the recipe; the piece you can see in this photo was about 1/2 my total.
