Japanese · sauce/condiment

Hakusai no Sokusekizuke (Overnight Salted Napa Cabbage with Kombu and Yuzu)

Hakusai no Sokusekizuke (Overnight Salted Napa Cabbage with Kombu and Yuzu) reads salinity 6.4, umami 5.6 and citrus 4.9 on Palate's 0–10 flavor X-ray — a Japanese sauce/condiment, about 10 hr 34 min. Measured from the recipe itself: ingredients and technique.

The flavor X-ray — six axes, 0–10

The measured notes (of 18)

Salinity 6.4 · Umami 5.6 · Citrus 4.9 · Marine & Briny 4.4 · Sweetness 4.3 · Allium 3.6 · Funk & Ferment 2.9 · Warm Spice 2.6 · Heat 1.9 · Floral 1.8 · Richness 1.7 · Sourness 1.5 · Fruity 1.2 · Earthy 1.0 · Bitterness 0.8 · Herbaceous 0.7 · Nutty 0.6

What's in it (8)

Time & effort: about 10 hr 34 min (4 min active) · effort: easy

Nutrition (per 100 g, engine-estimated): 14.3 kcal, 1.4 g protein, 0.2 g fat, 2.6 g carbs

Dietary: Vegan — engine-derived; double-check anything allergy-critical.

How it's cooked (5 steps)

  1. Weigh the cut cabbage and weigh out salt at 2 per cent of it. This ratio is the whole recipe: below about 1.5 per cent the cabbage slumps and spoils, above 3 per cent it is a salt-cure and no longer a fresh pickle.
  2. Toss the cabbage, salt, sugar, kombu threads, chile and ginger together in a bowl with your hands for a full minute, squeezing lightly, until the leaves start to glisten and lose their squeak.
  3. Pack it into a tsukemonoki press, or into a bowl with a plate on top and a 2 kg weight (a filled jar works). Leave 30 minutes at room temperature, by which time a brine will have risen; if it has not covered the cabbage in an hour, the weight is too light.
  4. Refrigerate 8 to 12 hours under the weight. The cabbage will halve in volume, go translucent at the stem and taste clean, salty and faintly sweet, with the kombu having gone slippery and given up its glutamate to the brine.
  5. Squeeze out gently, keeping the brine for a day or two of further pickling if you like, and toss with the yuzu threads just before serving so the citrus oil is still volatile. A few drops of usukuchi soy at the table, never before, or the pickle goes brown.

Dishes with a similar flavor shape

Keep reading: what salinity, umami, citrus mean in the flavor lexicon · the world's cuisines, by flavor.

See how this dish fits your palate — take the short taste test →

Every number above is Palate's engine-measured estimate, computed from this recipe's ingredients and techniques — not human-tasted ratings or reviews.