Sango-Hachi-Zuke (Rice Koji Vegetable Pickles)
Quick answer
- Total time
- 70 min
- Level
- Medium
- Servings
- 4 servings
- Ingredients
- 4
About this dish
Sango-hachi-zuke is a rice-koji pickle from Nihonmatsu, Fukushima.
Read more
Cooked rice is cooled to about body temperature, mixed with rice koji and salt, and matured for at least one month to make a reusable pickling bed. Cucumber, carrot, eggplant, turnip, or other vegetables are coated with that bed and left overnight. 5 cup salt rather than a literal scaled version of those numbers. Cooling the rice before adding koji and breaking up every clump makes the bed even. The pickles helped farming households preserve abundant vegetables and provided a ready side dish during the busy rice-planting season.
Ingredients
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Instructions
Read the steps as a cooking flow: prep, heat, seasoning, doneness control, and finish.
- 1Heat
Spread freshly cooked rice in a thin layer on a clean, wide tray.
Turn it two or three times to release steam and cool evenly until it feels no warmer than body temperature against the back of your hand.
- 2Season
Add the rice koji to the cooled rice and break up every koji clump with clean hands or a spatula.
Add the salt and mix thoroughly from the bottom so crystals do not collect in one area.
- 3Prep
Pack the mixture into a heat-sanitized, completely dry jar and level the surface.
Close the lid and mature in the refrigerator for at least one month to make the sango-hachi bed. Use a clean, dry utensil whenever removing some.
- 4Prep
Wash and completely dry the vegetables.
Leave cucumber and eggplant whole and cut carrot and turnip into 2 cm pieces. Coat evenly with a thin layer of fully matured bed, seal in a clean bag with the air pressed out, and refrigerate overnight. Brush or rinse off the bed and cut for serving.
Practical Cooking Checks
The cues that matter most while cooking.
- Key technique
- Rice cooled to body temperature is mixed evenly with rice koji and salt.
- Finish cue
- Wash and completely dry the vegetables.
- Avoid this
- Do not add koji while the rice is hot.
- Storage and reheating
- Cucumber, carrot, eggplant, turnip, or other vegetables are coated with that bed and left overnight.
Cooking decision evidence
Calculated Charim data and applicable official cooking and food safety guidance.
This recipe
70min, 4 ingredients
Category median
32min, 7 ingredients
Based on 163 recipes
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