My Soy Pickled Cucumber is a copycat of the popular cucumber pickles called Kyūri no Q-chan that is sold at supermarkets and grocery stores in Japan. It has a slightly sweet soy flavour and the crunchy texture is so addictive.
Total Time does not include Pickling Time which is overnight as a minimum.
No Meal Idea today because you could include Soy Pickled Cucumber (Kyūri no Q-chan) whenever you are having rice!
- 400g/0.9lb Chinese cucumbers (note 1)
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp sugar
- 20g/0.7oz ginger , finely julienned
- 1 tsp roasted white sesame seeds (optional)
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Slice cucumbers into 5mm/3⁄16" thick discs and put them in a bowl.
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Sprinkle salt and sugar over the cucumber pieces, toss or mix well using your hand, ensuring that all cucumber pieces are coated in salt and sugar.
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Leave them for 20 minutes.
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Taking a handful at a time, squeeze the cucumber pieces to get water out of them (note 3).
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Put all the Pickling Liquid ingredients, cucumber pieces, and ginger in a frying pan and heat over high heat.
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Cook for 3 minutes, stirring from time to time so that all the cucumber pieces are cooked in the liquid and stained evenly.
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Turn the heat off and let it cool to room temperature.
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Transfer all the cucumber pieces with ginger and all the liquid in the pan to a zip lock bag (note 4).
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Put sesame seeds in the bag and gently massage so that the sesame seeds spreads evenly.
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Remove the air from the bag as much as possible and seal the bag.
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Pickle for at least overnight in the fridge.
1. Chinese cucumber (see the photo in the post) has a firm texture even in the centre of the cucumber where the seeds are (unlike Lebanese cucumbers) which works well in this recipe.
You can buy Chinese cucumbers from Asian grocery stores. The next best cucumber is Japanese cucumber or continental cucumber (telegraph cucumber).
If you can only find Lebanese cucumbers, you can still make this recipe, but you may want to condense the pickling liquid so that the liquid does not become too thin while pickling due to the water from the cucumbers. See note 4.
2. Mentsuyu (麺つゆ) is a concentrated noodle soup base that you can buy from Japanese/Asian grocery stores. You simply add water to a small amount of mentsuyu to make a noodle soup broth.
You can also buy vegetarian mentsuyu online. The link here shows a Ninben brand vegetarian mentsuyu bottle.
You can find more details about mentsuyu with sample photos in the post.
3. You will probably get only a few to several drops of water from a handful of cucumbers, unless you are using Lebanese cucumbers. That’s OK. Another reason for squeezing the cucumber pieces is to damage the cucumber flesh slightly for better penetration of the pickling liquid into the cucumber pieces.
4. If you are using Lebanese cucumbers, transfer only the cucumber pieces into the bag, then heat the liquid to condense slightly, and put the liquid into the bag after cooling it down.
5. Soy Pickled Cucumber (Kyūri no Q-chan) keeps about a week in the fridge.
6. Nutrition per serving (5 servings). It is assumes that 50% of salt and sugar while sweating, and 30% of pickling liquid are absorbed into the cucumber pieces.
serving: 92g calories: 28kcal fat: 0.4g (1%) saturated fat: 0.1g (1%) trans fat: 0g polyunsaturated fat: 0.3g monounsaturated fat: 0.1g cholesterol: 0mg (0%) sodium: 307mg (13%) carbohydrates: 5.8g (2%) dietary fibre: 0.6g (2%) sugar: 3.1g protein: 0.9g vitamin a: 0mcg (0%) calcium: 21mg (2%) iron: 0.4mg (2%) potassium: 153mg (4%)