Name: Nuka
Yield: Makes an infinite supply of pickles
Cuisine: Japanese
Ingredients: ¾ cup pure kosher salt, plus more for each batch of vegetables; ¾ cup beer; 1 cup boiling water; 2 pounds wheat bran; 2 (4-inch) pieces kombu seaweed; Vegetables, scrubbed, whole or cut into large pieces, peeled or not, such as carrots, cucumbers, turnips, daikon, red radishes, sunchokes, and turnip leaves (tied in a bunch); 1-inch piece ginger, halved; ¼ cup dry mustard powder; ¼ cup miso paste; 2 cloves garlic, peeled but left whole

Preparation info

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Canning for a New Generation by Liana Krissoff

By Liana Krissoff

Published 2010

About

Nuka are a traditional Japanese pickle often served at the end of the meal—I have no evidence that they do in fact aid digestion, but that’s the idea. The pickles are made by burying vegetables in a bed of damp, salty rice or wheat bran until they are soured by fermentation. Two pickling books in particular go into great detail about nuka: Sandor Ellix Katz’s weird and wonderful