Sterilize the jar and lid.

Place the rice and water in a bowl or large measuring cup. Allow it to sit 10-15 minutes. Strain the rice, making sure you save the rice water. The wet rice may be stored in the refrigerator up to three days. Prepare it as you would normally.

Core the cabbage and chop into small pieces. You don’t need to shred it. Just make the pieces small enough to easily fit in the jar. Spread the cabbage out on a large baking tray.

Prep any additional vegetables you are including: smash and peel garlic cloves, trim and chop scallions, peel and chop shallots. If you are including radishes, peel if necessary and chop.

Using the side of a chef’s knife or other heavy object, pound the added vegetables lightly, so they break down. Add these to the cabbage tray.

If you are using a hot pepper, deseeding it will make it less spicy. Or you can include it whole. Drop in the glass jar.

Returning to the cabbage: Scatter the salt evenly over the vegetables. It may seem there is not enough. Don’t worry; there is.

With very clean hands, begin massaging the vegetables vigorously until they begin to break down, releasing their moisture. This will happen quickly. After a few moments, taste a piece of cabbage for salt. It should taste salty, but not overpoweringly so. If the cabbage is extremely bland–unlikely–carefully add a tiny bit more salt.

Begin loading vegetables into your jar. A funnel is helpful but not necessary. Compact the cabbage with a pestle or other heavy object (not a knife handle!). adding handfuls as you go. Liquid will well up; that’s okay.

Once the jar is full you may need to pour off quite a bit of cabbage liquid to make room for the rice water. I did. This depends on your cabbage. Pour off liquid if necessary and add the rice water. You want it to cover the cabbage completely.

Cover the jar loosely. If you screw the lid down now, you risk the gases from fermentation blowing the lid off and sending cabbage everywhere.

Fermentation takes 3-5 days. Check it daily, making sure the liquid is topped up and nothing is amiss. If it smells or looks bad, toss it. When in doubt, throw it out.

Taste on day three: it should be more sour than salty. Decide if you want to give it more fermentation time or refrigerate it. You may want to give it another two days.

When the cabbage is ready, screw down the lid and refrigerate it. Thai salt-pickled cabbage lasts indefinitely in the refrigerator, but will be gone long before that.

Notes:

Do not use table salt in this recipe. The anti-caking agents in table salt may keep it from clumping, but they also kill the desirable microbes necessary for fermentation.

On that note, let us discuss water.

Before writing the following, I consulted with an expert. This expert happens to be my husband, a civil engineer specializing in wastewater remediation. In addition to a Master’s Degree, my husband has a special certification called a Professional Engineering Licensure.

I think we can take his advice seriously.

I can’t tell you how often I read cookbooks suggesting water may be dechlorinated by placing it on a counter overnight. This, we are told, allows the chlorine gases to disperse.

In plain English, this is utter bullshit.

Should your water taste and smell of chlorine, my husband suggests purchasing an inexpensive water filter. Unlike buying countless bottles of filtered water, a water filter will rapidly pay for itself.

I would add that many people inhabit areas where the tap water is just fine. They may be experiencing other civic issues–indeed, some of them horrific–but the tap water? Just dandy.

My point? If your water is heavily chlorinated, yes, it will cause problems with your pickle. But if it isn’t, don’t go looking for trouble. We all have enough going on as it is.

Lecture concluded.