Leiyang Jar-Pickled Vegetables 耒阳坛子菜

Leiyang Jar-Pickled Vegetables (耒阳坛子菜) are salted vegetables cured in earthenware jars in Leiyang (耒阳), Hunan, a city Hunan Daily's food paper Daxiangcai Bao (大湘菜报) says is known as the "坛子菜之乡" ("home of jar vegetables").

How it is made

Daxiangcai Bao describes jar vegetables as an old way of making pickles, handed down by word of mouth over a very long time until it became a varied local speciality. Most Leiyang jar vegetables are dry-cured: long beans, for example, are dried in the sun, rubbed with salt, sun-dried a second time and then packed into the jar. The paper adds that the older the jar, the more fragrant the vegetables.

Ingredients

What goes into the jars changes with the season: cucumber and pumpkin flowers in spring, chillies and long beans in summer, fermented tofu in winter. Leiyang's rainy, humid climate suits the fermentation of "霉豆腐" (mould-fermented tofu), which is then mixed with Leiyang chilli powder and chilli oil. Radish strips, fermented tofu and chopped Huanggong chillies (黄贡椒) are among the home ingredients Leiyang chef Hu Qiang (胡强) names.

Flavour and texture

The sourness comes from natural fermentation in the jar, which the paper finds mellower and more natural than the sourness of added vinegar, and the vegetables keep a strong aroma.

How it is eaten

Leiyang Jar-Pickled Vegetables are eaten with rice. Hu Qiang recalls his family keeping a dozen or so pickling jars at home, and a bowl of white rice soaked in boiled water with a little jar vegetable on top being a satisfying meal. The chilli-dressed fermented tofu is likewise described as indispensable with rice.