Sinki

The root buried in autumn, eaten in spring.

What it is

Sinki is radish root, shredded or cut into fingers, packed into a pit lined with leaves, sealed under earth and left to ferment for a month or more. It comes out sour and smelling sharply of itself, then dries to pale tan strands that look like coarse straw. The pit is the point: no salt goes in, and the ferment runs on what is already on the root.

Where it comes from

Hill Nepal, where radish grows well and a winter larder had to be built in autumn. The pit method is older and more rural than the jar ferment that produces gundruk, and it is becoming rarer as people buy vegetables year round.

What it's called

Sinki (Nepali). Not the same as gundruk, which is the leaf, nor as Chinese or Korean salted preserved radish, which is brined rather than pit-fermented and will not give the sourness.

In the kitchen

Soak it for ten minutes, drain it, and squeeze it hard before it goes in the pan, because the soaking water carries a dusty note that flattens a broth. Fry it briefly in smoking mustard oil until it smells toasted, then build a thin jhol around it with potato and tomato. Keep the broth loose. It gets poured over rice and drunk from the bowl, and thickening it into a curry misses the dish.

What we know about the claims

As with gundruk, the fermentation claims outrun the evidence once the thing has been dried. Treat it as a sour preserved vegetable. It is the sourness, not the nutrition, that earns it a place.

Choosing and buying

Harder to find in Britain than gundruk and not reliably stocked even by the Nepali online grocers, so check availability before you plan the dish. There is no honest substitute. If you cannot get sinki, cook gundruk instead and call it what it is.