Nukadoko and Nukazuke Resources in the English Language

My first attempt to make Nukazuke pickles was from this video of a japanese granny very casually explaining how she starts her nukadoko, with likely a younger relative doing the filming. Although I don’t doubt your average granny’s ability to cook, videos like these are terrible as a sole resources for learning a recipe. I find they tend to skip details, use intuition instead of recipes and absolutely nothing has been cross tested by different people. With this in mind and the fact that the automatic translation lost half the nuance, I’m not surprised it took almost 2months to get anything remotely edible out of my new ferment.

After a LOT of trial and error, I’ve ended up finding a bunch of nukazuke resources that are more details and properly translated/written in english. At this point, I have 7 cookbooks with nuka being mentioned!

Cook Books with Recipes (in order of detail and comprehension)

“Nukadoko” by Tuttle Publishing

Get this book for a more than comprehensive Nuke guide, with the added bonus of being affordable and to the point

”The Japanese Art of Pickling and Fermentation” by Yoko

This book has a variety of different japanese pickling methods, and one of the chapters of the book is dedicated to Nukazuke pickles.

Yoko has a clear guide for creating and maintaining your nukadoko, a list of different veggies that work well and a troubleshooting section.

Get this book for a comprehsive Nuka guide, and if you want to explore other japanese ferments

”Real Japanese Cooking” by Makiko

I can’t rave on about this book enough, not only does it have 600 incredible japanese recipes, she fits in a whole spread for starting and maintaining the Nuka, and another spread for QnA. This was really the recipe that got me through any troubleshooting, and the one that i frequently consult (in addition to the Nukazuke book) for new things to pickle or any measurements.

Get this book for a comprehensive Nuka guide, and 599 more recipes!

Other Mentions

Books that did contain a recipe for Nuka, but I wouldn’t recommend going out and buying these books specifically for this recipe. If you happen to own this book it may be useful to just get another perspective on the technique.

“Wild Fermentation” by Sandor Katz
- Like the rest of this book, the recipe here is very bare bones and takes route intuition instead of tradition.
“Preserving the Japanese Way” by Nancy Singleton Hachisu
- I’m not the biggest fan of this book and won’t be buying any of her other books. I found that the book gives off the impression that recipes are details and authentic, but this recipe oversimplifies the technique and misses a lot of

Free Resouces

PlantBasedMatters blog

This blog has a great guide for both the Nukadoko and subsequently nukazuke.

Nukadoko guide -> plantbasedmatters.net/nukadoko-a-fermented-rice-bran-bed-for-pickling/
Nukazuke guide -> plantbasedmatters.net/nukazuke-japanese-pickles-made-in-a-fermented-rice-bran-bed/

” Vol.12 Make Nukazuke at Home – A Traditional Japanese Fermented Superfood” by Yoko Arimoto (video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DY0nInaG-fw

This video is not in english, but I believe the author has manually added the translation to the english subtitles.

I don’t know who this lady is, and if she is popular or not in Japan, but everything about this video screams that she is one of those posh, household name food celebrity inside of Japan.

This video is not really a guide for beginners, but gives you and idea of where you can take your Nukadoko, and gave me one of the greatest nukadoko tips, which was seeing how she washed the walls and outside of her container.