Atchara substitutes

The best substitute by a wide margin, because atchara is not really about papaya. It is about a mild crunchy vegetable carrying a sweet-sour ginger brine, and chayote is the standard Filipino stand-in with jicama a close second. Brine: 1 cup cane or white vinegar, ½ cup sugar, 1 tsp salt, 1 tbsp julienned ginger, 2 cloves sliced garlic, 1 small carrot in matchsticks, plus red bell pepper and raisins if you like.

Best for

fried fish and chicken, grilled pork and barbecue, longganisa and tocino breakfasts, lechon kawali, rice meals

Prep

Toss the shreds with 1 tbsp salt, leave 30 minutes, then squeeze hard in a clean cloth. Boil the brine, cool it, pour it over, and refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight.

Chayote is almost indistinguishable from green papaya here: the same mild flesh, the same crunch. Jicama stays harder and tastes faintly sweeter, which some people prefer. Daikon is juicier with a mild radish bite. Green mango works too but brings its own sourness, so cut the vinegar by a third. This is a refrigerator pickle: keep it cold, and eat it within two or three weeks.

The closest ready-made pickle in spirit and often sold on the same shelf. Same idea entirely: shredded mild crunchy root vegetables in a sweet vinegar brine, served in small amounts to cut through fried and grilled food.

Best for

fried fish and chicken, grilled meats, barbecue skewers, rice plates, sandwiches

Prep

Drain well and stir in 1 tsp sugar and a few slivers of fresh ginger per half cup to bring it closer.

It is less sweet than atchara and has no ginger or garlic, which is why the small additions are worth making. Daikon also has a faint radish sharpness that green papaya does not, and it can smell noticeably of radish when the jar is opened. Texture and function are otherwise spot on.

The supermarket jar that gets closest to the job, because sweet relish is exactly what atchara is: sugar, vinegar and shredded vegetable. It does the fat-cutting and palate-resetting work faithfully next to fried chicken or grilled pork.

Best for

fried chicken and fish, grilled pork, hot dogs and sausages, rice meals, when you need something today

Prep

Drain thoroughly in a sieve, then stir in a few slivers of fresh ginger and a pinch of salt per half cup.

It is softer, sweeter and cucumber-flavoured, often with dill or mustard seed, so it reads as an American condiment rather than a Filipino one and it has none of atchara's crunch. Drain it hard, because the liquid it sits in is much sweeter than atchara's brine. Add fresh ginger and it moves surprisingly close.

Genuinely crunchy, genuinely vinegary, and widely available, which makes it a strong practical choice. Chopped small and sweetened a little, it does everything atchara does structurally: crisp shreds in a sharp brine, eaten in small amounts.

Best for

grilled and fried meats, sandwiches, rice plates, barbecue

Prep

Drain, chop small, then toss with 1 tsp sugar per half cup and let it sit 15 minutes.

The flavour is Italian rather than Filipino: oregano, sometimes chilli, sometimes olive oil, and no ginger or sweetness at all until you add it. Buy the vinegar-packed kind rather than the oil-packed kind, which coats everything in oil. Chop it, because the pieces are far larger than atchara's fine shreds.

The five-minute version for when the meal is already on the table. It is a dressed salad rather than a pickle, but it hits the same notes, sweet, sour and crunchy, and it does the job of cutting through something fried.

Best for

last-minute meals, fried fish, grilled meats, when there is no time to pickle anything

Prep

Salt for 20 minutes, squeeze dry, then dress with 3 tbsp vinegar, 2 tbsp sugar and a pinch of salt. Ready in 15 minutes.

Because it has not sat in brine, the vinegar tastes raw and sits on the surface of the vegetable rather than soaking in, and it goes watery within an hour or two. Peel and seed the cucumber, and salt it properly; unsalted cucumber floods the dressing. Serve it immediately.

The honest least-bad option, offered because it is often the only sour crunchy thing in a Western fridge. It is sour and it is crunchy, and next to a fatty grilled pork chop it does the fat-cutting work well.

Best for

grilled pork, sausages, when it is the only pickle in the house

Prep

Drain well, rinse briefly if it is very salty, then stir in the sugar and a little grated ginger.

It tastes wrong in a specific way: sauerkraut is lactic and cabbagey where atchara is bright, sweet and gingery, so the plate reads German rather than Filipino. The sugar and ginger help but cannot disguise it. Drain and squeeze it hard, because its brine is salty rather than sweet.