How I miss Dua cai – Vietnamese pickled Mustard Greens

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When I started leaving home to study abroad and then moved to Singapore with my husband, I knew I would miss some parts of Vietnamese food in my country a lot. Surprisingly, those parts are not the big dishes, but the very small side dishes that we could have in every simple meal back home. One of those dishes is the pickled mustard greens. When I was at home, I always just watched my Mom made it, but never tried to do it. I thought it’s easy and I’ll never make it. But now, living abroad gives me a good chance to practice making “dua cai”. I gave myself a big compliment when I first made it successfully and thought it should be easy, but if you never do it, then it’s not that simple.

Buying pickled mustard greens is easy but expensive and the store-bought one is more suitable for making a soup. When I first tried the store-bought one, I was like: ” Whew!!! How could it be so salty and not crunchy at all! “. If you want to have the pickled mustard green as a fresh-like side dish, you’d better make by yourself. Homemade pickled Mustard Greens (Dua Cai) are always good and taste better for me.

Vietnamese people have a unique way to eat and enjoy Dua cai – the pickled mustard greens. My dad loves eating this dish just only after 1 or 2 days of making it, when mustard greens just start to soak with salt and sugar, not sour but a little bitter and crunchy. I personally like the sour taste of pickled mustard greens better. After about a few weeks, when there’s only a little left and the pickles are way too sour, my mom would cook soup or stir-fry them. Wow, how I miss all those simple dishes! I’ll walk you through the recipe and intructions of making the pickles first in this entry and in the next entries I would love to share some other dishes made from Dua cai later.

1. Ingredients:

• 2 big mustard greens (Please look at photo #1 to choose the right type of mustard greens)
• 4 stalks of green onions (About a bunch)
• Brine water of pickles:
  • 3 Tablespoons salt
  • 2 Tablespoons granulated sugar
  • 1.5 liters water (boiled water and cool down to room temperature)

2. Instructions:

• First, “hang” the mustard greens to make them dehydrate a little bit (at least in one day). My Mom told me that if we hang them to dry out, the pickled mustard greens will absorb salt and sugar brine water faster, and so the process will be faster to get the sour taste. Moreover, this step will make the pickled mustard greens crunchier.

• Clean and chop the green onion and dehydrated green mustards into 1 inch long pieces (2.5 cm).  Mix them together and set aside. Green onion is important because it make the pickled mustard greens smell better and prevent them from being spoilt.
• For the brine water: Actually my Mom always says she just did this with her feelings. Put a little bit of salt, then a little bit of sugar into the water, until she felt the taste of the water is somehow sweet and salty. Ok, this also the way Vietnamese people cook. We don’t really follow any recipe :D. But here I have the recipe for you to try.
  • Add salt and sugar to the water and taste the mixture again. Please try this recipe and you can then adjust a little bit next time. It’s important to boil the water and to cool it down to room temperature because this way, as my mom said, will kill all the “bacteria” and assure that the green mustard will not be spoilt.
  • Salt helps the green mustards become sour, and sugar helps them look golden brown and crunchy.

• Pack tightly all the mixture of green onion and mustard greens into a clean glass jar (you can also use a ceramic jar) (Please note that it’s important to pack tightly). Then pour the brine over the jar and make sure that the water covers all the greens.
• Cover tightly and leave it at room temperature. Check the jar the next day. There would be a reaction between the greens (the excess water that is not dehydrated yet) and salt or sugar, which increases the amount of water in the jar. You would want to take them out and just make sure that the greens are submerged.

• If you leave the jar outside (at room temperature), the pickles are done after 2 or 3 days, depending on if the weather is hot or warm or cold. If you want to reserve, you can put the jar into the fridge and keep  it up to one month or so.

That’s it! It’s simple, easy but more important, it’s very delicious. In our Vietnamese meal, pickled green mustards sometimes are just the side dish, but it makes other main dishes more delicious and inviting. Especially for people who are not living in Vietnam like me, I can understand the meaning the pickled green mustards are to Vietnamese cuisine. Try the pickled mustard greens with some dishes like thit kho trung (caramelized pork with eggs) or pan-fried five-spice powder pork belly (thit quay hung liu)!