Rice vinegar

Salted, squeezed, dressed. Nothing sharper would leave the cucumber audible.

Young skin needs no peeling, so it pickles pale pink and stays crisp instead of going limp.

A sharp cold dressing is the standard treatment, acid doing most of the work against the funk.

Sour and hot, no chilli anywhere. The pepper is the burn.

Mild acid lets the gingerol lead; harsh vinegar would flatten it entirely.

Salt-cure then vinegar-cure; the acid firms the flesh without cooking it.

Marine slipperiness needs acid, and seaweed is too delicate for wine vinegar.

Sugar, salt, vinegar, fanned into hot grain. The rice is the actual dish.

Salt and sour from the same grain culture. Ponzu is barely more than this.

Quick-pickled, the heat drops away and only the crunch and colour survive.

A cold-dressed salad version leans on acid since the sprout itself has none.

Quick-pickled, it turns pink and the pine note sharpens into something citric.

Acid thins the paste to a dressing without diluting the chilli.

Toasted fat against clean acid — the whole dressing is these two plus soy.

Raw radish is water and mustard oil. This turns it into a condiment.

Quick pickle: enough acid to season, not enough to destroy the crunch.

Sweet rice wine and sour rice wine, straight from the same starting point.

It is the curing liquid. Adding more just puts back what the ginger absorbed.

A fruit with almost no acid needs the mildest vinegar there is, not lemon.

Raw and shredded, they take acid better than they take heat.

Milder than balsamic, so the berry keeps its top note instead of stewing.

Dashi, rice vinegar, tomato: a cold savoury broth with no stock at all.

Quick-pickled, it becomes crunch with acid instead of crunch with nothing.

Melon esters need acid, not salt. The vinegar is quiet enough to allow it.

Acid strips the camphor edge and leaves the honeyed half of the petal standing.

Lactones plus mild acid reads as yoghurt; the cocoa butter stops cloying.