Taijiang Pickled Vegetables

Taijiang Pickled Vegetables

　　Taijiang Pickled Vegetables are a specialty dish from Taijiang County in Qiandongnan Prefecture, Guizhou Province. The local Miao people in Taijiang enjoy sour and spicy soupy dishes, and almost every household prepares pickled vegetables, sour soup, and pickled chili peppers.

　　The pickled vegetables made by the Miao people of Taijiang are delicious and refreshing. The preparation method involves washing and sun-drying freshly harvested greens such as leafy vegetables, Chinese cabbage, Chinese chives, and radishes, finely chopping them, and mixing them with glutinous rice flour, sticky rice, rice gruel, chili powder, and salted water. The mixture is then stirred evenly with the vegetables and pickled in a jar. These pickled vegetables can be eaten raw as a side dish with lunch during workdays, or used to make a soup during freezing snowy weather. Normally, when cooking fresh vegetables or melons and beans, adding these pickled vegetables or sour soup not only aids digestion and promotes saliva production but also clears internal heat. In hot summer days, making a clear soup with the pickled vegetables or soaking raw pickled vegetables in cool well water creates a very refreshing and thirst-quenching drink.