Simple Pickled Celery is so easy to make. All you need is celery and salt with a bit of lemon and chilli. Yet, so yummy. Simplest is the best, sometimes. Just plan ahead to allow for marinating time.
There are so many different kinds of pickled vegetables in Japan. Most of them are salty but there are sweet and/or sour flavours as well. They sometimes use sake kasu (酒粕, lees) to pickle, giving a slightly alcoholic flavour to the pickled vegetables.
Note: Sake kasu is the lees left over from sake production. It looks like dough, not sticky, and usually comes in a sheet. It retains about 8% ethanol so reasonably alcoholic. Typically, sake kasu is used as marinade together with other seasoning, to make amazake (甘酒, sweet sake) by adding water and sugar, or to make kasujiru (粕汁, sake lees soup) by mixing with miso.
These are the several typical pickling bases:
- Shiozuke (塩漬け) – salt-based
- Shoyuzuke (醤油漬け) – soy sauce-based
- Misozuke (味噌漬け) – miso-based
- Mirinzuke (味醂漬け) – mirin-based
- Suzuke (酢漬け) – vinegar-based
- Amazuzuke (甘酢漬け) – sweet vinegar-based
- Kasuzuke (粕漬け) – sake lees-based
- Nukazuke (糠漬け) – rice bran-based
As you might have guessed, zuke means pickle or marinade.
Note: Nuka (糠, rice bran) is a by product of the rice milling process (the conversion of brown rice to white rice). In addition to using it for pickling, Japanese often add rice bran to the water when boiling bamboo shoots to remove harshness of the bamboo shoots.
When I was a child, almost all households made nukazuke at home. Mix rice bran with salt water, konbu (kelp) and chilli. Throw in a vegetable scrap, replacing with a new scrap every day for at least 1 week during which time a lactobacillus culture will develop. After that you can pickle almost any kind of vegetables in a nuka base. As long as you mix the nuka base every day to air it, it will keep many years.
These days, you can buy many different kinds of pickled vegetables at supermarkets and department stores including nuka-zuke. Households which make their own pickles must be a minority in Japan now.
The variety of Japanese pickled vegetables available in Australia is quite limited and they are not cheap. So I try to make simple pickles at home. This ‘Simple Pickled Celery’ is one of them. I leant how to make this from the vegetable shop in Tokyo near where my parents lived. The owner of the vegetable shop is an old lady and this is her recipe. My father loved this pickle and always bought a bag or two from this shop.
You only need a few ingredients to make Simple Pickled Celery and it is so easy to make. I use a zip-lock plastic bag so washing up is also minimal. It keeps a couple of weeks in fridge. I normally have a small amount of pickled celery as a side whenever I have Japanese or Asian meal with rice.
Because of the salty flavour, you can eat cooked rice with only pickles if you have no other dishes to accompany. It is not the best from a nutrition perspective but if you just want to fill your stomach quickly or you don’t feel like having a heavy meal, it works.
Yumiko
- 3 stalks of celery
- 200ml (6.8oz) of boiled water
- 10g (0.35oz) salt (Note 1)
- ½ tbsp lemon rind , julienned (Note 2)
- ½ tsp sliced chilli (optional)
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Add the salt to the boiled water and mix well to dissolve. Allow to cool down to room temperature.
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Slice celery into 5mm (3/8") slices diagonally.
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Put the salty water into a zip lock plastic bag. Add celery, lemon rind and chilli. Shake the bag so that the salty water coats every celery piece.
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Seal the zip lock bag, removing as much air from the bag as possible. Leave it in the fridge for at least half a day to pickle.
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To serve, drain salty water and place in a small plate or a bowl.
1. The amount of salt varies depending on how salty you want the pickles to be. This is 5% salinity which is slightly saltier than sea water. You can adjust the saltiness to your liking.
2. It would be ideal to use yuzu citrus instead, if you can get it. I can’t find fresh yuzu in Australia so I used lemon. You could substitute lemon with lime too.
Hi Yumiko-san.
I too have stumbled upon your website. That was two hours ago and I am still browsing! It would be good to see some of your recipes for pickling vegetables. Home made is so superior to anything bought, I know you agree with that. Excellent website, the detail is vital.
Hi John, welcome to Recipetin Japan! thanks for your feedback and I shall try to post pickled veggies.
My mother, Kazuko, always removed the tough string from the celery before pickling. I do that also. This is a very refreshing pickle. Thanks so much!
Hi Chieko-san, You are right. Japanese do remove tough strings from the celery. Japanese food preparations are carried out to make the dish as delicate as possible including textures. I am becoming really Aussie now and I sometimes skip the step such as removing the tough sting of celery.
I love homemade pickles on hot rice! That’s comfort food for me!
Hi Chieko-san, I like pickles, too. Something is different from store bought, isn’t it?
I notice at the Japanese market that many of the pickles often have artificial color, preservatives, etc. Homemade is always better and healthier!!! Growing up with a Japanese mother made me learn that!!! Kimchi made with celery is very good. Have you tried that? I make kimchi out of all kinds of vegetables. I’ve found that choosing one vegetable as the main ingredient is better than mixing up too many things. Of course, being Japanese, not too much garlic or hot pepper. I actually like very spicy food but it’s not for everyone! Just natural fermentation. Very healthy and great with hot rice!!!
So fun chatting with you, Yumiko-san!
Btw, I used to live in house that had a traditional ume tree. I’m sure you know the small fruit used for umeboshi is an apricot, not a plum. So for 3 seasons, I made umeboshi. A bit of work but worthwhile. The most labour was collecting the ripe fruit every morning before the bugs and birds got to them. They fell during the night and that’s when they were at their best. Do they grow where you live? I’ll have to share with you a secret on how to make ume-zu from store-bought plums (not apricots). It’s great for making traditional beni shoga. My mother never figured that one out! I like to experiment in the kitchen.
Do you ever make ika no shiokara? I’m sure you can get good quality squid in Australia. That’s another one of my favorites on hot rice!!
Take care!
Hi Chieko-san, I have not made kimchi with celery but I made Japanese version of kimchi with Chinese cabbage. It uses anchovies instead of salted seafood or fish sauce. the kimchi you by at the shop often got fermented too much and have a touch of sourness but when you make it at home, it won’t have sharpness at all and yummier. I used to eat very spicy food but my stomach does not handle strong chilli any more. I guess it’s not a bad thing at my age.
We do grow plum as well as apricot in Australia. Some people grow them at home but I don’t have any. I never heard of umeboshi made from apricot. I read a lot about umeboshi on the Japanese website but none mentioned that. I like shiokara but I try not to eat a lot because it is quite salty. You can eat a lot of rice with small amount of shiokara. We have lots of fresh seafood in Sydney but it is rate to find sashimi quality squid which is the must for aka no shiokara as you’d need to use not only flesh but guts to make it.
From Wiki…Umeboshi (Japanese: 梅干, pronounced [ɯmeboɕi]; literally “dried ume”) are pickled ume fruits common in Japan. The word “umeboshi” is often translated into English as “Japanese salt plums,” “salt plums” or “pickled plums.” Ume (Prunus mume) is a species of fruit-bearing tree in the genus Prunus, which is often called a plum but is actually more closely related to the apricot.
Thanks for the info!
Since we last chatted, I fell off a ladder and broke my shoulder and knee on the right side. Not fun since I live alone and have pets. Ended up in the hospital and physical rehab for 2 weeks. I’m ok now. Knee healed up fine but have range of motion issues with my shoulder but it’s not affecting my kitchen endeavours anymore! Also was a guest poster on a blog featuring Asian food. I was asked to make ika no shiokara! I’ve been documenting my own recipes with photos for 3 years so I can start my own blog. This was fun. There was a tight deadline and I followed through with evertything. So how are things with you?
I am so sorry to hear about your accident. I hope you recover 100%. Wow, you are really into traditional Japanese cooking. Good luck with the blog.
I am in Japan now. Came here on 2nd Nov with a friend who was new to Japan. I took her around Tokyo to see beautiful autumn leaves and several great places. Ate different types of Japanese food every day. Then moved to Ikuji onsen, in Toyama prefecture to have a day trip to Kurobe gorge. After that, stayed in Kyoto (Kinkakuji was so pretty with coloured leaves) then back to Tokyo. My friend returned to Sydney yesterday but I am still in Tokyo until 27th. Enjoying Japanese food every moment!
Fell off the ladder on July 3rd.
Sakuranbo can be made like umeboshi. I made some and shared with some Japamese ladies and they said it was like the umeboshi.
I will wait for your blog to learn how to make umeboshi!
Konnichiwa Yumiko-san! I just stumbled upon your site and am happy beyond words. Thank you for taking the time to explain everything in great detail. It’s not just a recie – it’s a cooking class! So fun!
A few requests, though: when writing a Japanese word could you give the phonetic spelling so I know whether or not I am pronouncing it correctly? Also, could you give the American equivalents of measurements. I don’t know what 5mm is and .35oz/10g is what?… a tsp? a tablespoon? Many thanks and I look forward to visiting your site often.
Hi Virginia. Thanks for the kind words. I will try to add phonetic spelling. In my earlier phase of blogging, I was not consistent with the US measurement. I am getting better now, I think. I will go back and update the old recipes where US measurements are missing.
But isn’t 0.35oz the US measurement? This is weight, not liquid volume. 5mm is 3/8 inch.
Konnichiwa Yumiko-san! I love this simple pickling! I also think celery (although it does not contain many nutrients) is an underrated vegetable. We like it simply sauteed as a side. I make squash pickles in a quick brine that are kept in the refrigerator.
Hi Dorothy-san. I agree with you. And some people don’t seem to like celery due to distinct smell and flavour. By marinating it, the celery smell gets reduced and I find that it is easier to eat.