Green-Pickled Garlic, known as Laba Garlic (腊八蒜) in China, brightens up any dining table. The cloves sparkles like emerald gems, droplets of dark vinegar glistening on the surface, garnering curious looks from those unfamiliar with the pickle. When stored on my pantry shelf, the mason jar looks like something I picked up at an apothecary decades ago. But what they are is simple: purple-skinned garlic pickled in black vinegar and sugar and left until tart and fiery. This should take a few weeks.

A few Laba garlic cloves are exactly what’s needed the cut through the rich fatty foods of Beijing and Dongbei. Plump pork dumplings, thick slabs of steamed pork belly or sweet air-dried sausages are a bit too much to take day after day without it.

The tradition of this pickle comes from the Laba Festival, held on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month - usually in January. In old Northern Chinese custom, this was the day to settle accounts for the year—known as làbā suànzhàng (腊八算账), or “Laba calculations.” The word suàn (蒜, garlic) is a homophone for suàn (算, to calculate), and over time, families began pickling garlic on this day as a symbolic act. For debtors, gifting garlic was a way to acknowledge unpaid debts without saying it outright—an edible apology, wrapped in vinegar.

This is a pickle to make when the days are short and cold and you’re happy pottering around in the kitchen. Peeling clove after clove is a task to keep your hands busy whilst your mind wanders. Try to find purple-skinned garlic if you can - it has much higher levels of anthocyanins - the natural pigment that reacts with the acidity in the vinegar to create that distinct vibrant green. White garlic can pickle just fine, but it often doesn’t turn green or as strikingly. Purple-skinned also has a stronger, spicier flavour, which is what we want from Laba Garlic.

Makes a 250ml mason jar