Pickled cucumber. One the extended family has tens of rai of taeng kwah and every couple of years she gives me a few kilos of the dodgy-looking ones. Sliced and in big plastic jar along with dill (phak chi lao) and vinegar. Even after two years they're still crisp. Not eaten as often, now, as the novelty has worn off. Great on a fairly thin plain, lightly napoli-sauced pizza base, a little cheese to bind them and topped off with sour cream post-cooking. Pickled ginger. Dug up the ginger patch a few years ago to make way for building out the back of the house. I cleaned, sliced, and pickled about four kilos of them - my arthritic hands hated it - while drinking beers and watching cricket (the game, not the insect) and eating crap. I still have some left. And the slices are still crisp. Eaten, as one does, with homemade market-bought sausages (saikrok) and fresh chilli. Pickled chillies. Picked, sliced, and dumped in a glass jar with white vinegar. That's it. After a six weeks or so, the ones still left in the jar have lost their crispness so I toss them and refill. Great in noodle soup, or on omelettes and rice. Pickled onions. I brought some proper pickling spices from The Motherland, had some malt vinegar delivered from Britishop, and did three kilos. After a two months, they tasted great. However, I've had trouble getting the small brown onions again as the woman that sold them on the side of the road died. The onions I pickled went the way of the dodo a few years ago, going soft. I think one needs to blanch them before pickling. Still have five packets of pickling spice. But no source of onions. I was going to pickle my own garlic until I realised with all the faffing about with peeling 100 cloves - especially after my ruined hands from peeling all that ginger - getting the right pickling formula, and waiting for the pickling to work, it was better just to buy the stuff pre-made. And I still haven't opened it. It's probably past its Best Before date now.
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