Kohlrabi Pickle

I volunteer at one of the Los Poblanos Organics CSA pickup locations, and it's a great place to pick up new recipes. One of our members came in last week really excited about kohlrabi, and I said - Wow, you must know a good recipe! What are you going to do with it? 

I had tried growing it a few years ago, and it was beautiful but I couldn't figure out what to do with it. I ended up making this stuffed kohlrabi thing, and it was not that great... Let me just say, I am fundamentally against pretty much all "stuffed" vegetables. I mean, you just carve out the inside and mix it with a bunch of bread crumbs or whatever, it takes a bunch of time and energy to assemble, at least an hour to bake, and basically just tastes like flavored bread! By that time, I'm starving and wishing I'd just sauteed it in olive oil, so I could be enjoying the vegetable's full delicious flavor without all that work. And kohlrabi is pretty dense stuff, so it was a big pain chipping out the hard, solid inside just to fill it with fluff!

 
Well, this woman from the CSA said, her mom used to make a kohlrabi pickle! It's really simple. You chop up the kohlrabi into matchsticks and you put them in a jar with minced garlic, and chile flakes if you like that sort of thing (and I do). Then you fill the jar 1/4 of the way with rice vinegar, 1/4 more with water, and the rest with soy sauce. That's it. And oh wow, is it good. Not too soy-saucy as you might imagine - the vinegar and water really balance it out. I ate about half a pint as soon as I was finished making it. It's addictive!