Vietnamese Carrot and Daikon Pickle

For this month's Tigress' Can Jam the focus, as many of you know, was carrots. A perfect pick, I thought, especially for me because while I've always been curious about carrot recipes my preserving fancy gets overwhelmed by more immediately enticing items. The sturdy dependable carrot is always there and sadly gets overlooked. I always have carrots around. I use them in so many recipes. And thanks to clever root cellars and great winter markets, I got to purchase some beautiful, local carrots from Four Winds Farm in Gardiner (check out their seedling sale in May, if you're local).

I went the straight and narrow for this post, but who can ever can just one recipe for the month's pick? There are too many interesting and delicious recipes to try. I think my next endeavor will be a chutney. But for now, we have a most satisfying and simple recipe. I have made this as a fresh pickle from The Joy of Pickling by Linda Ziedrich. I didn't know it could be canned, and didn't find out until I was flipping through the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. It's key to bahn mi or perfect aside some nice Vietnamese pork chops.

The tweaking I did to this recipe was to halve it, add coriander instead of star anise, and add a sprinkling of turmeric because I thought it would impart a nice color. I also grated the vegetables instead of them being julienned, using a hand grater that makes a nice, long strand. The adapted version follows.

1 1/2 cups white vinegar

1 1/2 cups water

3/4 cups sugar

1 tsp. grated ginger

1 lb. carrots, peeled and grated

1 lb. daikon, peeled and grated

1 tsp. coriander seed

A sprinkling of turmeric- maybe an 1/8 of a teaspoon?

In a heavy-bottomed pan, combine vinegar, water, sugar and ginger. Bring to a boil over medium heat to dissolve sugar. Add carrot and daikon and stir for one minute. Add turmeric. Remove from heat.

Place 1/2 tsp. of coriander seed in the bottom of each hot jar. Pack hot vegetables in the jars within a generous 1/2 inch of top of jar. Ladle hot pickling liquid to cover vegetables, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Remove air bubbles. Process in boiling water for ten minutes. This yielded two pint jars, firmly packed.