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Preparation
1 hour
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Cooking
20 minutes
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Difficulty
Easy
Pickled papaya is a vegetarian dish often used as a side dish to stimulate the taste buds, with crunchy, salty, and unusual papaya that is very delicious. Let’s join TasteVN in the kitchen to make this pickled papaya dish!
Ingredients for Vegetarian Pickled Papaya For 4 people
Papaya 500 gr (1 fruit) Cucumber 500 gr Salted radish 300 gr (pickled radish) Dried tofu skin 3 sheets Pineapple 1/2 fruit (sour) Rice 100 gr (1/2 cup) Fermented tofu 8 pieces Minced garlic 1 teaspoon Cooking oil 50 ml Common spices a little (salt/ sugar/ seasoning)
How to choose fresh and delicious ingredients
How to choose good papaya
- To make pickled papaya, you should choose greenish-yellow papayas for a crispy and tasty dish.
- You should choose long, heavy papayas with a sticky stem. These fruits will have fewer seeds and thicker flesh.
- If you’re buying papaya to make salad, choose duck-bill-shaped papayas, freshly picked, with firm flesh. If the fruit has been picked for a long time, the flesh will be soft, and when shredded, the papaya won’t be crispy.
How to choose fresh cucumbers
- You should choose cucumbers that are bright green, fairly uniform in color, and free from blemishes or yellow spots as these are signs that the cucumbers have been stored for too long and are starting to spoil.
- You should select straight cucumbers with little to no curvature. Cucumbers that are long and uniformly sized are the type with a crunchy texture, which tastes better than shorter, round cucumbers.
- Choose heavy, firm cucumbers with smooth skin, without bumps, and opt for smaller ones as they tend to be sweeter than larger cucumbers.
- You should avoid buying cucumbers that bulge in the middle or have a large head and a small tail (and vice versa) as these are overripe cucumbers with many seeds, hard texture, and not tasty.
How to choose good pickled radish
- Choose pickled radish that is bright in color, soft when pressed by hand, and dry. Absolutely avoid black, damp radishes.
- You can buy pickled radish at food stores for an average price of about 30,000 VND/kg (Reference price updated on 10/03/2021).
- Note to carefully observe the packaging when purchasing to avoid buying pickled radish that is moldy, slimy, or expired.
- Additionally, to ensure hygiene and safety, you can make pickled radish at home.
How to make Vegetarian Pickled Papaya
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Prepare the ingredients
Green papaya peeled, washed, shredded, and soaked in diluted salt water for 15 – 20 minutes, then rinsed with water and drained.
Cucumber washed, deseeded, cut into bite-sized pieces, soaked in diluted salt water for 15 – 20 minutes, then rinsed with clean water and drained.
Pickled vegetables cut into strips, washed with diluted salt water, then rinsed with water 2 – 3 times to reduce saltiness, then drained well.
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Sun drying
After draining, place the papaya, cucumber, and pickled vegetables in a basket and sun dry for about 4 – 5 hours until wilted.
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Making Rice Flour
Add 1/2 cup of rice to the pan, turn on the stove, and roast the rice for about 15 – 17 minutes on low heat, until the rice is evenly golden and fragrant, turn off the stove, put the rice in a mortar and use a pestle to grind it finely to make flour.
Tip: If you have a blender, you can also put the rice into a blender to save time.
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Sautéing Pineapple and Frying Tofu Skin
Take 1/2 pineapple, peel it, remove the eyes, then chop it small and put it in the pan to sauté with 3 tablespoons of sugar.
When the pineapple turns a deep golden color and becomes translucent, take 8 pieces of fermented tofu, place them in a bowl, and mash with a spoon, then stir well with the pineapple and turn off the heat.
Heat another pan over medium heat, add 50ml of cooking oil, wait for the oil to heat up, and fry each piece of tofu skin until golden and crispy, then remove to a plate to drain the oil.
Once the tofu skin cools slightly, break it into bite-sized pieces.
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Stir-fry the pickled radish
Place a pan on the stove, turn on medium heat to warm the pan, reuse the oil from frying the tofu skin in the pan, and sauté 1 teaspoon of minced garlic until fragrant.
Then add the pickled radish and stir-fry, season the pickled radish with 1 tablespoon of seasoning powder and mix well, then turn off the heat.
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Mix the pickled vegetables
Add the stir-fried pickled radish to the pan with the pineapple, add cucumber and shredded papaya, then mix everything together.
After that, add the crushed tofu skin along with the roasted rice flour and mix well until the papaya and cucumber absorb the seasoning, and it’s done.
Tip: You should let the pickled vegetables sit at room temperature for a day so that the flavors are well absorbed, making it tastier!
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Final Product
Pickled papaya with cucumber, crunchy papaya soaked in the rich taste of fermented tofu, brings a delicious feeling when you enjoy it.
You can eat pickled papaya with white rice or spring rolls, both are very delicious.
If you have leftover pickled papaya, put it in a container, cover it tightly, and store it in the refrigerator for later use!
Tips for successful execution
- If the cucumber is large and has seeds, it is advisable to remove the seeds.
- The container must be sterilized with boiling water.
- When eating, use clean utensils to pick the cucumber, do not stir.
- Picked pickles can be stored in the refrigerator in the cool compartment for about 1 month because no preservatives are used, so you should make just enough to eat. If there is no refrigerator, you can store it outside in a cool place; avoid low humidity temperatures, do not place it under direct sunlight, and it can be stored for 2 weeks.
- You can skip adding garlic for those who are vegetarian and avoid garlic.
So you have completed the pickled vegetarian papaya dish, wishing you success in making the dish and enjoying it deliciously with your family!
*Image and recipe source shared from Facebook: Thien Nhien
