Spicy Red-Pepper Pickles (oh ee ji mu chim – 오이지무침)

Enjoy your rice with a delectable banchan that is a tasty mix of sweet, sour, nutty, and spicy. This is one of my favorite side dishes and it is quite easy to make. Start with any homemade or store-bought pickles, and in a few minutes you will be ready to eat the transformed product.

Time:

• Prep Time: 10-15 minutes
• Waiting Time: 30 minutes
• Total Time: ~40-45 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 – 24oz can of dill pickles (oh ee gi – 오이지)
• 2 Tbsp of crushed red pepper (go chu ka ru – 고추가루)
• 1 Tbsp of granulated sugar (seol tang – 설탕)
• 4 Tbsp of finely diced green onions (da jin pa – 다진 파 optional)
• 1 Tbsp of minced garlic (da jin ma neul – 다진 마늘)
• 1 Tbsp of Sesame oil (cham ki ruem –  참기름)
• 2 tsp of Sesame Seed Salt (ggae so geum – 깨소금)

For more information about ingredients please see my ingredient page for detailed information

Categories:

• Long-term Banchan
• Sweet & Sour
• Mildly Spicy
• Quick & Easy
• On the Cheap

1. Just start with you average can of dill pickles. Open them up and, unless you have a good reason to save the pickle juice, toss it down the drain.
   
2. Slice them up into about the size you see here.
   
3. Throw them back in the container they came with and soak them in cool water for 30 minutes. In general, pickles from the store are to salty for this dish, if you have homemade pickles that are less salty, you can decrease the time to compensate. You don’t want them flavorless, you want a little salty and vinegary flavor left, but you don’t want it to be so strong to overpower the ingredients that you are going to add later.
   
4. Next, you need to press the pickles dry. You can use a cheese cloth, or, as I did not have a cheese cloth in this case, you can use a clean and sanitized (boil for 5-10 minutes after washing) face towel. If the pickles are too wet, the ingredients won’t stick to them very well. 
5. Next add the crushed red pepper, sugar, minced garlic, finely chopped green onions (I skipped that ingredient in this batch), sesame seed oil, and sesame seed salt.
   NOTE: If you like a little more vinegary flavor, you can, at this stage, add a little bit, perhaps 1 tsp to 1 Tbsp depending on taste. 
   
6. With a cooking glove, mix the ingredients until evenly distributed.
   NOTE: As this is a long-term banchan, it is very important not to contaminate it, which is why we use the gloves. Even the littlest bit of bacteria at this stage will reduce the shelf-life considerably. 
7. Enjoy with rice along with some other of your favorite banchan!
   

Do you have comments? Suggestions? Questions? Leave them below and I will answer right away!~